Remember Me?
by This-is-my-designx
Summary: Kol/OC. Set after the events of 3x15 after Kol leaves Mystic Falls. Astoria meets Kol who mistakes her for someone he used to know. The two of them repeatedly bump into each other, Astoria can't help but think that maybe he's doing it on purpose.
1. Chapter 1

****A/N: This chapter is just a little of Astoria's back story, explaining how she was turned.

* * *

><p><strong>England, 1182<strong>

The night was still young and yet the air was already bitterly cold, a sure sign that the deadly winter months were well on their way. For Astoria and Daniel, though, the cold was but a small price to pay for the rare opportunity to spend precious time together. There had been a time not so long ago when they had been able to spend all the time in the world together, had they wished it so, but when Astoria's parents found out, they'd expressly forbade her to spend so much as another second in his company. When Eve and Matthew had discovered their daughter's association with the blacksmith's son, they'd almost had a fit. No daughter of theirs would be caught associating with someone of such lowly standards, not if they had any say in it.

Daniel's parents, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind at all. And why should they? Astoria came from a powerful, wealthy family and a relationship between the two of them could only be a good thing. Or so they had thought.

"Don't go," begged Daniel when Astoria had decided that it was time for her to return home. "Just for an hour or so."

"I must. If my parents find that I am gone then who knows what steps they'll take to ensure that it doesn't happen again?"

Daniel groaned but he didn't protest any further. She was right, they had to be careful, but he was tired. Tired of sneaking around behind his parents back, tired of pretending that they didn't even know each other well enough to acknowledge when they saw each other. He knew that he loved her and in that moment, that was all that mattered.

"Lets run away." He said, placing a hand on either side of her face. "Just the two of us. We could go anywhere, be anyone we wanted, we could be together."

Astoria smiled sadly. She wanted nothing more than for them to be together without her overbearing parents trying to force them apart, but even before the sentence had finished passing his lips she was shaking her head. Neither of them knew enough about the world and how to survive in it to run away. Besides, Daniel was an integral part of his family. When his father didn't make enough money to provide for his wife and four children, it was Daniel who brought home the food.

"We can't run away, Daniel. Your family needs you."

He sighed unhappily and pressed his forehead against hers. "When will I see you again?" He murmured.

"Soon. I'll let you know the usual way."

"I'll be waiting."

Their lips met gently as they bade their unspoken goodbye. It was a kiss that said all the words that they couldn't out of fear of being overheard.

Entirely too soon for either of them, Astoria pulled away. "Goodbye, Daniel."

"Be safe," he whispered.

"Always."

* * *

><p>Astoria trudged through the forest, trying her best not to feel the piercing cold that was seeping into her very bones. Her skirts were skimming the filth-covered floor so she lifted them slightly. She didn't care about the filth, but she didn't want her mother seeing it and growing suspicious.<p>

She glanced around nervously; the trunks in this part of the forest were thick and close together. The branches hung low, snagging in her hair and on her dress every so often. The forest was surely the home of thieves and bandits, but travelling through the forest cut down her journey by half an hour, and if she used the path she ran the risk of running into someone she knew or being recognised by someone who would surely turn her in to her parents.

She was in the process of navigating her way over a particularly rocky patch on the ground when she heard a twig snap close behind her. She span around, expecting to find herself face to face with a brutal man and his sword yet she found nothing.

It's nothing, she told herself firmly, but she was starting to grow uneasy. The forest was a dangerous place to be at the best of times. She began to walk away, quickening her pace a little, eager to get home and leave the forest behind her when she heard footsteps, yet when she turned around, she found nothing, again.

"Hello?" She called out, immediately covering her mouth when she realised that if it was just her imagination, then she had just given away her position to any number of potential attackers who may have been lurking nearby. She was about to start walking again when she was knocked to the ground from behind. She managed to break her fall with her hands and push herself around to face whoever had pushed her but for the third time she found nothing but the dark and mysterious forest.

She was more than uneasy now. As fast as she could, she pushed herself up from the ground, lifted her skirts and broke into a run. She could hear the sound of a pursuit but she didn't stop this time, she was putting all her efforts into not tripping over her stupid dress. She knew that if her idiotic 'hello' hadn't alerted anyone of her presence then the sound of her loud breathing as she struggled to draw breath and crashing through the forest certainly would have.

She chanced a glance behind her as she stumbled through the trees; she couldn't see anyone but that didn't mean she was alone. She turned to face forwards again only to find a dark figure standing only inches away from her. She came to an unsteady stop and stared up at the figure fearfully. She was almost certain that this was the unknown entity that had been chasing her, unseen, through the forest.

"Who are you?" She managed to get out as she clutched the stitch in her side. She saw the corner of their mouth pull upwards in a smirk and the flash of unusually pointed teeth before they lunged for her neck. Her scream had barely passed her lips when she felt the teeth tear at her throat. She was vaguely away of a strange sucking sensation, like her attacker was sucking out her blood before she descended into darkness.

* * *

><p>She drifted in and out of consciousness. All she knew was that she was injured. Badly. Her last conscious thought before she slipped back under was that it was still dark. Unless her parents had awoken and found her bed empty, no one would know she was in trouble. She had no one to rely on but herself.<p>

* * *

><p>She woke to the sounds of harsh voices. She couldn't make out what they were saying, only that they were arguing. She raised her head slightly, only to be knocked back down by the pain that was coming from her neck. She gave a small groan, diverting her assailant's attention away from their argument.<p>

"This one's a fighter." She heard a male voice say. She opened her eyes in an attempt to identify him but found that her vision was blurry. She groaned again as her neck gave a particularly painful throb and the man laughed.

"Who is she?" asked someone else. A woman.

"I know her," said a third voice, another man. "She lives in the village. Up near the church."

"So she's one of the well-to-do, eh?"

"I suppose so."

"Lets turn her." said the first man.

"Why?" said the woman.

"Oh, you know how much the 'upper class' inhabitants of this village hate us. I think it'd be an interesting experiment."

The next thing she knew, someone was forcing their bloody wrist against her mouth, forcing their blood down her throat. She tried to resist with what little energy she had left, but it was futile.

She heard the woman cry out angrily and she assumed that it was her that pulled away the wrist from her mouth. "Are you sure it's not because she's pretty?" She snarled.

"Positive." He replied, grabbing Astoria's neck and forcing it sideways, pushing her, once more, down into the darkness.

* * *

><p>Astoria woke up gasping for air. Her hands automatically went to her neck where she found nothing but smooth, unharmed skin. Had she dreamt the whole ordeal?<p>

"Morning, sunshine."

She started and her eyes found a tall, unfamiliar man standing to her left. He was watching her carefully, a small smirk tugging at his lips.

They weren't in the forest anymore. In fact, she wasn't sure where they were. They seemed to be in some kind of abandoned building. All the windows had been hastily covered up, blocking any sunlight that may have made it into the room otherwise.

It was daytime, which meant that her disappearance would have been noted by now. Her father would be out looking for her whilst her mother sat in front of the fire, wringing her hands together agitatedly. Would be Daniel be out looking for her? Or would he have feigned indifference?

No, he would be out looking for her like his life depended on it. He'd blame himself, since she'd gone missing on her way back from visiting him.

"Who are you? What do you want from me?" She asked the man, wincing at how _loud_ her voice sounded to her own ears. In fact, everything seemed louder. There was a persistent ringing in her ears that was causing her head to throb painfully and she just felt _wrong_ all over. Her senses all seemed slightly magnified and she could swear she smelled blood.

Before the man could answer, a woman and a slightly smaller boy walked into the room, dragging a boy around her age into the room. He was unconscious, knocked out by the looks of it.

"What's going on?" Astoria asked, looking at each of them in turn.

"Oh, it's nothing personal, sweetheart." Said the man, grabbing hold of the unconscious boy and dragging him over to where she was sat.

"Are you sure about this?" Asked the woman, looking at Astoria resentfully.

"Absolutely." He stopped in front of Astoria and knelt down, holding the boy by the back of his shirt. He grinned at her and his face started to change. Astoria's eyes widened in shock and she pressed herself against the wall in an attempt to get as far away from this…_monster_ as was possible; the whites of his eyes had flushed red and there were veins protruding on the skin underneath. Perhaps the most frightening part was that his canine teeth had elongated into sharp and deadly looking fangs. He ripped into the boy's throat, leaving a sizeable gash, not unlike the one that had been torn into her neck only hours before.

Though the whole situation had her trembling in fear, she couldn't help what happened next. The smell from the blood coming from the boy's neck was overwhelming. She was almost too repulsed to even think it, but it smelled good. _So _good. She didn't notice herself moving closer, but she must have because the next thing she knew, she was holding her mouth against the wound, taking in the blood that was seeping from his neck. The effect was instantaneous. She felt it rushing through her veins, empowering her, strengthening her, enhancing everyone of her senses when the reality of what she had just done hit home. She shoved the boy away from her in disgust and wiped the blood from her mouth, tears pooling in her eyes. She stood up and marched past her captors who, to her surprise, didn't try to stop her.

"Where are you going?" Asked the woman.

"Home." She said without looking around. She pulled open the door, eager to return home, and cried out in agony as the sunlight hit her. It was burning her! The pain was unimaginable, it felt like every cell in her body was bursting into flame. She caught sight of her skin which was blistering in the light and she moved so quickly it startled her.

"What's happening to me?" She cried at her attackers who were watching her, unconcerned.

There was a pregnant pause within which the man and woman looked at each other before the woman stepped forward.

"You're a vampire."


	2. Chapter 2

**America, 1918**

The sun had set almost two hours ago meaning the creatures of the night had come out to play. If one listened carefully, the occasional scream could be heard as a life was taken by one of the devil's children. They tortured and maimed, killed for fun and left bodies mutilated in ways the imagination could barely conceive.

New York had a vampire problem.

Astoria sauntered through the streets, inhaling deeply. The scent of blood was thick in the air; somewhere close, carnage was occurring. She didn't have to look far to find it. Almost immediately after breathing in the intoxicating fragrance of blood, a series of helpless screams and strangled sobs met her ears. The killer was close.

She followed the scent of blood and the horrifying noises that now included desperate pleas from the humans that were still alive.

"Why are you doing this?" sobbed a woman. Astoria pictured her covered in the blood as the body of a loved one lay on the ground, broken. It was a sickening image.

"Because I can." came the harsh reply.

Astoria knew that voice.

She quickened her pace a little, coming to a stop when she reached the house that was, without a doubt, the scene of the crime.

It was a normal house, nothing out of a the ordinary. It belonged to a fairly middle-class family, that was obvious. The only thing that caused it to stand out from the houses that surrounded it was the blood spatters across the front windows. The curtains, also spattered with blood, had been drawn. It was a wonder that a passer-by hadn't caught sight of the grisly scene and brought it to the attention of the police.

Then again, in the darkness, it was perfectly possible that a human would mistake the blood for black paint. There were no lights down the street, the only reason Astoria knew that it was blood was by it's smell.

She walked up the driveway slowly and pushed the front door which, she wasn't surprised to find, wasn't locked. The owner of the house must have already had his or her life snuffed out because she found that she was able to pass over the threshold of the house without being invited in. She opened the door of the living room and the sight that met her eyes would have been enough to shock her into fainting had she been human. There was blood everywhere. Soaked into the carpet, strewn across the walls, covering every person in the room.

There were three dead bodies. The vampire had gone for the teenagers first. Three of them lay in the centre of the room, covered in what she assumed was their own blood. One of them, a boy, had bite marks in his neck. His death would have been the least gruesome. The other two had been ripped apart. It was hardly surprising that the last three members of the family, two women and a man, were all cowered in the corner. The man was staring at the bodies of the teenagers, his face a mask of pure shock. The two women were holding each other, sobbing as though the world had come crashing down around them which, she supposed, it had.

"Help us!" cried one of the women as Astoria entered the room. "Please help us!"

"What's going on?" she asked, turning to face the attacker.

"Tori!"

"Hello, Charles."

Charles was a stocky, well built man who had been turned in his early thirties by an old lover of his who had promptly abandoned him after he completed his transition because she was angry that he refused to leave his wife to start a life with her despite his declaration of undying love.

This was his way of channelling the anger and the pain of her betrayal into, what he considered, a constructive way of dealing.

"I'd like you all to meet my good friend, Tori." said Charles conversationally. "Tori, this is Edward, his wife Callie and their maid, Charlotte." he turned to Astoria as he wiped a smudge of blood from the corner of his mouth. "I was just having some dinner. Care to join me?"

Astoria turned to face the cowering humans. Her expression, which up until now, had been a blank canvas, started to change. Her mouth turned upwards in a smirk and her eyes lit up with excitement. She could feel her face changing; the whites of her eyes flushed red and the veins beneath started to protrude. Her canine teeth elongated into fangs and she grinned. It had been quite a while, a week or so, since she'd engaged in such an activity, and she was aching for the satisfaction of the kill.

"I'd love to."

* * *

><p>Charles and Astoria left the bodies of the family they'd just massacred lay in their own blood. They didn't bother to clean up after themselves, as they rarely did. The police would see it, conclude that it was another vampire attack and that would be the end of it. New York was crawling with so many vampires that the police were afraid that if they took down one, the rest of them would kill the whole city in retaliation.<p>

It was a stupid assumption. It wasn't like they were all one big family. It was every man for himself. If someone was stupid enough to get themselves staked, then so be it. The vampires did nothing to correct this assumption, though. It was an advantage to them if the police were too scared to kill even one of them.

Astoria was an old vampire. She'd seen things in her time that would scare the living day lights out a person, but she'd taken it all in her stride. Up until a few years ago when she'd finally snapped. She couldn't remember herself what the trigger had been, it all blurred together in a haze of blood and alcohol. She supposed that her longing for a human life had finally taken its toll and driven her to become a true monster. She was almost as bad as the insane ones, the rippers. Being a creature of the night, unable to take so much as one step into the sunlight for over seven hundred years had probably contributed a fair bit, too. Whenever she thought about it, she came up against a big, solid nothing. Like there were holes in her memory. This wasn't surprising though, after a particularly heavy blood-binge there were always holes in her memory after she'd blacked out and the monster inside of her had taken over.

The trigger was nothing of importance, anyway. It would have happened sooner or later.

They passed a group of gentlemen on their journey back from their most recent meal. Luckily for the men, they'd satiated their hunger not too long before and so they would live to see another day.

"Fools," said Charles quietly as they passed. "Only fools would come out at night. We're doing the world a favour, really, by disposing of them." he said, demonstrating his disdain for those he considered beneath him, which was most people. She understood what he meant, though. For months now the streets of New York had turned into a hunting ground the second the sun sank beneath the clouds. Only the idiots, the ones who thought that vampires wouldn't dare to go after people of such high class, came out at night. Those and the people who didn't believe.

How very wrong they were. New York was crawling with vampires. Old and new. Nice and mean. Sadistic and masochistic. And rippers. No one was safe at night.


	3. Chapter 3

**America, present day**

It was carnage.

The room looked like a scene from a horror movie. The previously white walls were covered in blood and human entrails. 26 human bodies filled the room. Every single one of them bore injuries that indicated they'd all been killed in sickening ways. Not one of their deaths had been quick and easy. They'd all been tortured to death. Who would have done such a thing?

Catching sight of herself in the mirror behind the bar, Astoria felt her stomach drop.

She was covered in blood. It was everywhere. In her hair, smudged across her face, soaked into her clothes and all around her mouth.

It was her. She was the killer. The one who had tortured these poor people to death.

"Oh, God." she muttered, wiping her bloody hands on her jeans. How had this happened? She hadn't murdered so horrifically for seventy years. Not since her dark days. She only killed when it was necessary, only fed for sustenance, never for fun.

"Oh, God. Oh my God. What have I done? How did this happen?" she was starting to panic. The last thing she remembered was being sat at the bar, sipping from a glass of water. After that, her memory was blank. She must have blacked out.

She dug in her pocket for her cell and dialled her best friend's number with shaking fingers, covering the buttons in blood.

"Hello?"

"Lucy? Lucy I've fucked up. I've fucked up big time. I don't know what happened. There's so much blood, Lucy! I killed them all! It's awful. Oh my God Lucy, what have I done?" she cried down the phone, stumbling over her words in her haste to get them out.

"Tori? Tori calm down, tell me where you are." said Lucy through the phone, her voice as calm and collected as it always was. Nothing ever phased her, not even a murderous rampage.

"What the hell happened in here?"

She turned around, eyes wide, to find a young man around her (physical) age stood in the doorway, staring around the scene of horror. His eyes met hers and he gaped at her.

They stared at each other for a few long moments before he sped across the room. Vampire.

She gasped, startled by the sudden speed, when he stopped in front of her.

"Come on, we need to get you out of here."

"W-what?"

"Tori, we need to leave."

"But the bod-"

"There's nothing you can do for them now."

"I can't just leave it like this!"

He didn't bother to reply, he grabbed her wrist and started to pull her across the room. She tried to pull herself out of his grasp but his hold was iron-clad. He was older then her, then.

He dragged her through to the back. It looked unnaturally clean compared to the state of the bar. He grabbed a towel, ran it under a tap for a few seconds and then started to dab at the blood on her face.

"What are you doing?" she complained, turning her face away from him. She was uncomfortable having a stranger wiping the blood from her face. "I'll do it myself." she grabbed the towel from his hands and started to work on herself.

Her face was easily cleaned up, her clothes were a whole other story though.

"How do you know my name?" she mumbled as she dabbed the towel ineffectively over the blood on her shirt.

"What?"

"How do you know my name? When you came in you called me Tori." she said, throwing the towel down in frustration.

He stared at her for a moment, apparently dumbfounded by her question. She didn't blame him. How he knew her name wasn't really a particularly pressing issue at the present moment.

"I, uh, heard your friend on the phone." he said after a long pause.

"Oh," she frowned, "why are you helping me?"

"Would you rather I didn't?"

"You don't know me, why would you help me?"

He stared at her. His gaze was so intense that she had to look away. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"What? Oh! Sorry. It's just, you remind me of someone. A girl I used to know. I actually thought you were her when I came in."

"A girl? Was she your girlfriend?"

"Yeah, she was." he said with a small smile.

"Did you love her?"

"Do you really want to talk about that now?"

"Wha-? Oh, fuck. _Fuck_. I can't believe what I've done. I haven't killed like this in years. I don't even remember it."

"Relax. You went on a murdering spree, it happens. It's what we do."

"_I _don't!" she protested. "I don't kill unless I have to."

"Apparently you do. You're a vampire, it doesn't matter. They're just humans."

Astoria stared at him. Was he serious? "Don't you remember what it's like to be human?"

"I do. But I don't miss it. Neither do you."

"Excuse me?" he was starting to get right on her last nerve. She was grateful that he'd helped her to calm down, but who did he think he was? Trying to tell her how she felt. How on earth would he know how she felt about being human?

He seemed to realise that he'd crossed the line a little. He shook his head dismissively. "Nothing. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm sure you do miss it." he paused. "Come on, we need to get out of here before the police show up." he reached into his pocket and pulled out her cell phone. "Here," he handed it over, "you dropped it when I came in."

He gave her a once-over and grimaced.

"That bad, huh?" she joked, regretting her choice to wear a white top.

"Here," he shrugged off his jacket and handed it to her, "you should probably cover up."

She took the jacket from him and put it on. It was a little too big for her but that wasn't really the problem. The real problem was the fact that she was covered in blood and not ten metres away lay a scene fresh out of a horror movie.

Oh, God, she thought to herself, hysteria starting to rise inside her again. Before she had time to descend into a full-blown panic attack, though, the guy grabbed her arm and pulled her out a door into a back alley.

"Do you have a car?"

"Yeah,"

"Alright, go home. Probably best to keep a low profile for a while." he turned and began to walk away.

"Wait! What's your name?"

"Kol!" he replied without turning around.

"What about your jacket, Kol?"

"Keep it."

She stood watching him walk away for a few moments when the sound of sirens caught her attention. Being stood in a back-alley covered in blood a little way away from the scene of the crime probably wasn't a good idea. With one last look at Kol she took off.


	4. Chapter 4

"Come on, you're coming out with me." said Lucy, throwing open the curtains.

Instinctively, Astoria cringed away from the sunlight that flooded into the room, as she often did; she still hadn't gotten used to the fact that she could go out in the sunlight now.

"I can't. They're still looking for me."

It had been two weeks since that disastrous day. Astoria hadn't been out of the house since. Partly because she didn't trust herself. Mostly because the police were hell-bent on catching the psychopath who had single-handedly murdered 26 people.

"Well you can't stay in here forever. I'm not coming over every day to bring you blood bags just because you're afraid you're going to go off the rails again."

"I killed 26 people in one go, Lucy! I don't think you're taking this very seriously."

"Ok, listen," she sat herself down on the sofa next to Astoria, "this isn't the same as, you know, _then._ You enjoyed it back then, lived for it. This was just a lapse of control. You were overwhelmed with a huge amount of blood-" it had since been revealed that the mass-murderer (Astoria) had started their murderous rampage after a man had come hurrying into the bar, dragging his wife along with him. They were both covered in copious amounts of blood. How they'd managed to get into that state, no one knew. Astoria didn't remember and it wasn't like anyone could ask the couple since they were dead and security tapes don't have sound, "-it happens to the best of us. You've been in control for seventy years, it was a brief lapse, that's all. Now, you can either stay in here for the rest of your life until I decide to drive a pity-stake through your heart or you can put this behind you and move on. We're vampires, things like this are going to happen to us once in a while."

"You're just gonna keep on until I agree, aren't you?"

"Little bit, yeah."

"Fine! Where are we going?"

* * *

><p>"Seriously? We can go anywhere and you bring me back here?" hissed Astoria, struggling to keep her expression neutral as she and Lucy walked down a street, past the bar that Astoria had defiled.<p>

"Yes, because you need to realise that you don't need to spend the next ten years locked in your apartment."

"They have my face on camera, Luce!"

"Yes, with red eyes and fangs! That's what they're looking for, sweetie." she paused. "Why do you care so much? You've seen worse in your time."

"Because if I care, I won't do it again. In fact, I think I need to stop feeding directly from humans for a while. I should just stick to blood bags."

"Good idea," replied Lucy absent-mindedly as she stared at the screen on her cell, obviously not paying attention anymore to what she was saying.

"Yeah, or maybe I'll start drinking animal blood and cover myself in sparkles like Edward freaking Cullen."

"Yeah, great," Lucy replied vaguely as she typed out a message.

"You're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"

"Wha-? Yes I am!" she protested, abandoning her cell and looking up.

"Ok, so what did I just say?"

"Ok, fine, I wasn't listening." Lucy admitted grudgingly. "Would I be the worst friend in the world if I abandoned you and went to Steve's?"

"Uhm, yeah!"

"Oh, please! He's needs me!"

"Why, did he break a nail?"

Lucy shot a glare at her. "He's ill, you know that."

"He's got the flu, Luce! I don't think having the flu really compares with the potentially murderous best friend!"

"I'll be 30 minutes, tops."

Astoria glared at her. This was _so _Lucy. It wasn't the first time Lucy had dragged Astoria out only to leave after 10 minutes to go and be with her boyfriend. Astoria suspected that Steve asked her to come over on purpose when he found out she was with Astoria. It wasn't exactly a secret that Astoria and Steve disliked each other. Steve seemed to see it as some sort of competition over Lucy's attention. Astoria just didn't like Steve.

"Fine! But if I end up murdering a bar of innocents again then that's on you." Astoria snapped, only half joking.

* * *

><p>Half an hour. 30 minutes. She could do that, no problem. It wasn't as though she was the emotionless psychopath that the media was painting her to be. She'd made a mistake, had a lapse in control, that was all. In all fairness, if you excluded her ripper phase in the 1900s, it was her only big mistake in over eight hundred years!<p>

It was fine, she just wouldn't go near anyone. She'd keep to herself.

She ended up sat on a bench opposite a library. Her fists and teeth were both clenched in an attempt to keep herself grounded. She didn't feel particularly edgy or uncomfortable, but she hadn't felt like that in the bar either.

She was on the verge of taking out her cell phone and demanding that Lucy leave Steve and come back when a voice cut through her thoughts.

"You look like hell."

She turned around and felt an involuntary smile break through her stony expression. "Oh, hey. Kol, isn't it?"

"Yep, that's me." he replied, sitting down beside her. "I didn't expect to see you here again."

"Yeah, well I didn't want to come, I was dragged out here then abandoned."

"By who?"

"My 'friend'. Apparently her boyfriend, who has the flu, ranks above me, who may or may not go on another murderous rampage. I've half a mind just to do it just to piss her off." she spat out bitterly.

Kol laughed and Astoria immediately felt a little nettled. Why was he laughing at her clear discomfort? "What? Why are you laughing?" she demanded.

He shook his head. "It's funny, how much you care about this whole thing. It doesn't matter, they're only humans."

"We were all human once. I never wanted to be a monster."

"You're different…" said Kol, frowning.

"Different compared to what?"

"Oh, you know, the rest of us. Most vampires would brush off what happened without a second thought."

"Yeah, well, I don't make a habit of murdering hoards of humans for no apparent reason. I'm not like that anymore.

"Anymore?"

She hesitated, she didn't really want to get into it with him, she barely knew him, but she supposed it couldn't really do any harm.

"Yeah, I went through a bit of a murder-everything-in-sight phase a few decades back." she paused. "That's why I'm so bothered. I haven't killed unnecessarily like that in seventy years, I don't want to slip back into that state of mind, but it's so easy to just let that side of you take over."

"You're stronger than you think."

"How would you _know_?" snapped Astoria, suddenly irritated. "You don't know me!" She wasn't exactly sure why she was picking a fight, the poor guy was giving her _encouragement_. He could have just as easily told her to let the dark side take over. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, getting up from the bench.

"No, you're right, I don't know you." he replied, leaning back on the bench and resting his arms behind his head. "Tell me about yourself."


	5. Chapter 5

"Really?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Yeah but, why?"

"I'm curious. And a little bored. I've been a little starved of company for a while, if you don't count my siblings, which I don't."

"Ok," she sat back down, "what do you want to know?"

"Everything. Your name, age, how you were turned, when you were turned, do you have any friends? Family? Tell me everything."

"Ok, I guess." she said a little hesitantly. "My name's Tori, as you already know-"

"Is that your full name?" Kol cut in.

"No, it's short for Astoria, but no one calls me that."

"Astoria? That's an unusual name."

"Yeah, well my mother was an unusual woman."

Kol grinned and gestured for her to continue.

"Physically I'm 23, in actuality I'm 853. I was turned in 1182. I'd snuck out of my home to visit my boyfriend. My parents didn't approve of him. He was the blacksmith's son down in the lower-class part of town whilst I lived in what was considered then as luxury. My parents were snobs. They almost died when they found out about me and Daniel. So we started meeting up in secret, usually at night. This particular night, I'd decided to take a short cut through the forest. I was attacked by three vampires. When I didn't die after the attack, the oldest one decided to turn me as a way of getting revenge on the 'well-to-do'. Apparently my parents and the other upper-class citizens of my town knew all about the vampires and were working tirelessly against them. Turning me into a vampire was basically a big 'fuck you' to my parents."

"What happened then?"

"I ran away."

"Why?"

"Because I thought my father would kill me for being what I was. There was no way I could hide it from him when I couldn't go out in the sunlight. I was scared."

"No family, then?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Friends?"

"I've had many. Lucy is the only one that's stuck."

"What about boyfriends?" he asked, leaning forward, watching her carefully.

"Well, there was Daniel. And Charles, but that wasn't really a relationship. It was more like we were drawn together by the incessant need to kill and he grew a little obsessed with me after a while, it made me uncomfortable. I don't really do relationships. One night stands are more my thing. It's a lot less hassle."

"Interesting." said Kol, leaning back against the bench again.

"Is it?"

"Incredibly."

Astoria frowned, she got a weird vibe from Kol. Like he was hiding something. Which he probably did. Every vampire had at least one dark secret, but it wasn't a dark secret that she felt Kol was hiding.

"What about you?" she asked.

"What about me?" he countered.

"Name, age, when you were turned, how you were turned. Do you have family, friends? Tell me everything." said Astoria, crossing her legs and raising an eyebrow.

Kol chuckled. "I asked you to tell me about yourself. I didn't say anything about me returning the favour."

"Seriously?" she protested incredulously.

"Seriously."

"I don't like you." she said, getting up from the bench, perfectly aware that she sounded like a child.

"Oh, believe me, you do."

"You know, initially I thought you were kind of decent, you know, when you helped me out the other week, but you're arrogant and you make me uncomfortable." she stormed, irritated further by the fact that he didn't look at all bothered by her outburst. In fact, he looked kind of amused.

"You're adorable when you're angry."

"Oh, bite me."

"If you're into that." he replied, cocking his head to the side with a smirk, clearly enjoying himself.

She didn't bother replying. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she turned on her heel and strode away.

"Goodbye, Astoria!" he called after her.

Urgh, she thought to herself, she could practically hear the laughter in his voice.

She was angry. Angry at herself for telling a guy who had turned out to be an ass all about herself. Angry at Kol for being an ass. Angry at Lucy for leaving her and most of all, she was angry at how easily Kol had been able to rile her up. She wasn't usually so easily irritated but he was just so…irritating!

* * *

><p>"Where are you?"<p>

"I'm with Steve, he's really il-"

"Tell Steve to man up. _I _need you!"

"Tori, you're fine. I told you it was just a minor lapse!"

"No. You were wrong. I'm gonna do it again. I'm outside that café with the yellow chairs. I'm losing control again, Lucy. You need to come and get me! Here I go!"

"You're being ridiculous, Tori."

"Am I? _Am I? _Will you be saying that when my face is plastered across the country with a $10,000 bounty on my head? Come quickly before I lose control!" she hung up before Lucy could reply and sat down on one of the chairs of the café she'd told Lucy she was about to attack. She was being immature, she was perfectly aware of that, but it was just one of those days where being immature was working so much better than being a level-headed adult. It was Lucy's fault in the first place that she'd even run into Kol, so really her being irritated and childish was on Lucy. Well, really it was Steve's fault for being such a girl, but she felt like pinning the blame on Lucy.

* * *

><p>"Losing control, my ass!" came Lucy's outraged voice from behind her. She turned to find her best friend storming up the street, clearly unhappy about being dragged away from her boyfriend.<p>

"I was bored so I thought I'd drag you away from your girlfriend." she lied, deciding to omit the part about Kol.

"My girlfr-my God! When are the two of you going to get over this feud you've got going on?"

"Hey, he started it. Maybe if he wasn't such a weed then I wouldn't feel compelled to retaliate!"

"Here," said Lucy, thrusting something into Astoria's hand. "Take my car and go home."

"What about you?"

"I'll walk!" she turned her back on Astoria and began walking back the way she came.

"Give Stephanie my best!"

Lucy didn't even bother to turn around, but Astoria could see the tension in her shoulders as she resisted the urge to turn around and say 'Steven! His name is Steven!' as she so often did. She grinned to herself, feeling satisfied. Irritating Lucy wasn't wise, but it was funny. And she deserved it, anyway, for leaving her!

It also took her mind off how irritated she was by a certain guy.


	6. Chapter 6

"So, then I said…"

Astoria groaned. For the past half an hour she'd been forced to listen to Steve go on and on and on about the injustice he had to suffer through at work. Every single day he was tortured by the fact that his co-worker was able to get away with coming back late after breaks, and he wasn't.

Oh, what fresh hell.

"Oh my, God. Please shut up." groaned Astoria as he started to count the amount of times he'd made an official complaint. "Nobody cares!"

"Tori!"

"_I_ care!" snapped Steve, turning around to glare at her.

"Steve, with all due respect, you are quite possibly the most insufferable person I have met in eight centuries. _Eight centuries_!"

"These things need to be addressed, Tori! They need to be stopped!"

"You know what needs to be stopped, Steve? You. You need to be stopped before I reach down your throat and pull out your vocal chords."

"Lucy! Are you going to let her speak to me like that?"

"_Fight my battles, Lucy! Protect me from Big, Bad Tori, Lucy!" _she mocked him, much to his displeasure. "Come on, Steve, be a _man_!"

"Why is she here?" asked Steve, turning to Lucy. "I don't want her here. Make her go."

"Don't worry, I'm going. I'd rather be stick my hand in a blender than listen to you and your 'problems' for another second." said Astoria, heaving herself up off the sofa.

"Can't you two at least try to get on, just once?" said Lucy, glaring between the two of them.

"Honestly, Luce? If he wasn't your boyfriend - and I use that term very loosely - I would have killed him by now, but you know, girlfriend code and all that."

Lucy threw a cushion at her, which she caught and threw at Steve, who squealed.

"I'll see you girls later."

* * *

><p>"You really need to stop antagonising him like that." said Lucy through the phone. Apparently after Astoria had left, Steve had kicked up a royal fuss about Astoria and her lack of respect towards him.<p>

"He started it! He always starts it! He acts like we're in some kind of competition and the prize is your attention."

"He feels threatened, Tori!"

"No he doesn't! He's just being petty. He hates anyone other than himself having even a second of your attention."

"Oh, come on, that's not fair-"

"No, it's not is it. It's not fair that I have to put up with your boyfriend trying to make me look like the bad guy here. It's not fair that whenever he finds out that you're with me, he makes up some excuse to make you go rushing to his side."

"That's not true!" she started to protest, but Astoria cut through her.

"Yes, it is! You drag me out for the first time in a fortnight after I lost control of myself and as soon as he finds out, he insists that you come over to look after him because he has the flu and you go over because you know that if you don't you'll never hear the end of it. You're over five hundred years old, Lucy. I think it's about time you stop letting your boyfriend's control you."

Without another word, Astoria hung up the phone and threw it across the room. She was furious. Somehow, no matter who had started it or what had happened, Steve managed to make her look like the one in the wrong. And admittedly, sometimes she was, but most of the time the fault was 100% his.

She might not have been so angry over it, but this wasn't the first time it had happened. There had been countless men over the centuries, all of whom had captured Lucy's attention and after that, Astoria would rank second in importance. Not even that, sometimes.

Irritably, Astoria got up and made her way into her room to grab a jacket before heading out. She was going to find the nearest bar and drink her sorrows away like the waste of space that she was.

She flung open her wardrobe and grabbed the closest jacket to her and shrugged it on. It wasn't until she glanced at herself in the mirror that she realised that the jacket she had chosen was the one that Kol had given her.

She was going to take it off and swap it for one of her own but she liked it. It looked good. Besides, it wasn't like she was going to run into him, he'd never know that she'd worn his jacket other than the time he'd given it to her. With a grin, she swept her hair to one side, grabbed her bag and her car keys and left.

* * *

><p>"What can I get you?"<p>

"Vodka and tonic, please."

The bartender nodded and set about fixing her drink. Astoria surveyed the bar casually. It was filled mostly with humans around her age. Or, her physical age at least.

"Here you go," said the bartender, placing a glass down in front of her. "That'll be-"

"-free." said Astoria, catching the bartender's eye and subjugating him to her will. His face was blank for a moment whilst her compulsion washed through his mind, wiping away his free will.

"On the house," said the bartender with a smile, pushing the glass towards her.

"So kind! Thank you!"

She was finishing off her third glass when her cell began vibrating in her pocket. She took it out to find Lucy's name flashing across the screen. Sighing, she pushed the 'answer' button and pressed the phone to her ear.

"What?"

"Finally! I've been calling you for 2 hours!"

"Which is exactly how long I've been ignoring your calls."

"Oh, come on, Tori, I l-"

"Lucy, I really don't have the patience to listen to you go on about how Steve is different from the others and how much you love him." she said, hanging up before Lucy could continue. She dropped her phone into her bag so that she wouldn't fee it vibrating every time Lucy decided to call.

She started on her fourth glass, pouring the clear liquid down her throat a little faster than was sensible. She could feel the alcohol starting to soak into her blood stream, lowering her inhibitions.

"Nice jacket," came a familiar and unwelcome voice as she lifted the glass to down the second half of the liquid, "I believe it belongs to me."


	7. Chapter 7

"Are you stalking me or something?" said Astoria irritably, shifting her stool away from him.

"What makes you think that?" he asked, moving his stool closer to hers in turn.

"This is the third time you've just popped up. It's a little creepy."

"This coming from the girl wearing my jacket," said Kol, grinning.

"Do you want it back?"

"No, it looks good on you." he said, looking her up and down.

She made a noise of disgust and ordered herself another drink. She wasn't in a mood where she was able to tolerate Kol sober. She needed to be at least a little tipsy.

"Going a little fast on the drinks there aren't you, Astoria?"

She was taking a swig from the glass almost as soon as the bartender had handed it to her. She slammed it down on the bar and turned to face Kol. "Don't call me that."

"Why? That's your name isn't it?"

"I told you, no one calls me Astoria, it's Tori."

"Well, I happen to like Astoria," he grinned before letting his gaze drift down to the drink in her hand. He shook his head in mock disappointment, "I would ask if you're going to buy me a drink, but since you're not even buying your own…"

She sighed in frustration. He'd been there a little over five minutes and already he was pissing her off.

How? How did he do that? How did he know exactly what buttons to press?

"What do you want, Kol?"

"What do _I _want? I was here first, love. I saw you come in. Maybe _you're _stalking _me_."

"Yeah, that's likely." she replied sarcastically.

"So, what brings you here alone?"

She sighed. The last person she wanted to talk about her predicament with was Kol. He would only laugh at her.

"Nothing. I just felt like having a drink," she replied finally, lifting her glass to her lips.

"Really? You don't strike me as the type to go drinking alone." he said sceptically.

"That's because you don't know me."

"I know you better than you think."

She scoffed derisively, the idea that he knew her even a little after three meetings was laughable. Ridiculous. Who did he think he was?

"You know what? I had planned on getting incredibly drunk and maybe hooking up with some randomer, but now that you're here, I'd much rather just go home." she snapped, nettled by his claim that he knew her even remotely.

"Hey, I'm open for hooking up." he replied, cocking his head to the side and smirking.

"I'd rather stick splinters in my eyes."

* * *

><p>"You are <em>incredibly<em> easy to persuade."

"I'm drunk, this doesn't count."

"I thought you'd rather stick splinters in your eyes?"

"I ran out of splinters."

"How convenient."

Astoria stopped in her attempt to unbutton his shirt and ripped it from his chest instead before crushing her lips against his to shut him up.

He didn't seem to mind.

He ran his hands down her sides, stopping when he reached the bottom of her top. His fingers curled around the fabric and he pulled it up and over her head before throwing it to the floor where it joined the remains of his shirt. She closed her bedroom door behind them and he pushed her up against the wall. Her hands got started on unbuckling his belt at the same time his left hand knotted in her hair as he began to trail kisses down her neck. When he reached the spot where her neck joined her shoulder he bit down hard, eliciting a pained moan from her lips.

Grinning, he kissed his way back up her neck and across her jaw line, leaving bloody smudges from the blood he'd drawn upon his bite.

Their lips found each other again and they began to kiss furiously, each of them battling for dominance, unwilling to let the other take control.

Astoria could taste her blood on his lips but she didn't pull away, if anything she deepened the kiss.

After succeeding in unbuckling his belt, her hands moved around to press on his lower back, pulling him closer to her, at the same time that he hitched up one her legs around his waist.

Together they removed the remainder of each other's clothes and began their descent into what they were both sure to regret the next morning. For the moment, though, neither of them seemed to care for the consequences.

* * *

><p>Astoria awoke the next morning with a raging headache and a body that felt very bruised. She supposed she must have fallen over a lot the previous night.<p>

She yawned and covered her eyes with her hand, protecting them from the sunlight that was doing nothing to soothe her headache.

As she tried to sink back into unconsciousness to escape the headache from hell, she remembered what she'd been dreaming about before she'd opened her eyes.

The details were foggy but she could just about make it out.

She'd been here, in her room, with someone else, engaging in what could only be described as amorous activities in her bed, on the floor, up against the wall.

She grinned to herself, _who _had she been dreaming about? The answer was there, right in front of her, but she couldn't quite grasp it.

_Oh, _that's right. It was Kol. Why had she been dreaming about having sex with Kol? In fact, why had she been dreaming about him at all? The two of them weren't exactly on friendly terms and they were definitely nowhere near being _more _than friends.

The idea was laughable.

She rolled over so that she was facing the other way, forgetting about the sun that was streaming in from that side of the room. She opened her eyes for a moment and almost fell out of the bed in shock.

Apparently her and Kol were on friendlier terms that she'd thought.

Because he was there.

In her bed.

Naked, as far as she could tell.

Oh, God, she thought to herself, staring at his sleeping form. She glanced down at herself and realised that she too was wearing nothing. Hastily, she got out of the bed as quietly and as carefully as she could as to not wake him.

She pulled on a vest top, some underwear and began looking for some jeans. She glanced over at the ones that she'd obviously discarded the previous night. Those were…ruined, to put it lightly.

"Going somewhere?" Kol's voice rang through the room and her head gave a particularly painful throb. She turned around to see him propped up on his elbow watching her as she got dressed looking rather pleased with himself.

Oh dear, she thought to herself. It was going to take a lot of snide remarks and cold shoulders to convince him that she still didn't like him.


	8. Chapter 8

"Listen, Kol," she began uneasily, wondering whether she might have a better chance at getting rid of him by simply yelling at him to get out rather than taking the more sensitive route. "Last night was a mistake. I was drunk and you were…" he raised an eyebrow, "persuasive."

"Is that so?" he replied, getting up and out of the bed. He walked around the bed and she watched him carefully, making an effort to keep her eyes strictly _above _his waistline, which proved rather difficult; he certainly was something to look at. He stopped in front of her and placed both of his hands on her hips. He pulled her gently forwards so that she was pressed up against him. He leaned down and kissed the skin just below her ear.

"I bet I could convince you otherwise." he whispered in her ear before kissing along her jaw line.

Despite the fact he was an absolute ass and an arrogant bastard, she couldn't help but feel just a little attracted to him, especially after the night before. She was about to fold, about to wrap her arms around his neck, kiss him full on the mouth and let him do whatever he pleased with her when she remembered who it exactly it was she was pressed up against.

He was attractive, yes, and talented, to say the least, but it was Kol. He was arrogant and mysterious and, though he hadn't actually done anything to suggest it, she got a bit of a dangerous vibe from him. Also, she barely knew him at all.

"Oh, I don't think you could." she replied in a voice that wavered on every syllable. He pulled back a little to look her in the eyes.

"Are you sure about that?" he asked as one of his hands started to make its way up her back, pushing her top up with it.

"Positive." she said firmly.

With a sigh, he stepped away from her, causing every inch of her body to scream in protest. "Well, that is a crying shame." he said before turning away and starting to pull on his clothes.

She pressed a hand to her forehead and pushed back her hair, cursing herself internally for letting herself fall into bed with, well, _him_.

* * *

><p>"Feel free to call me if you have a change of heart."<p>

"Oh, that's highly unlikely."

For some reason, Kol was grinning, despite the fact that he was being rejected.

"We'll see." he said with a smirk.

Rolling her eyes, she pulled open her front door, eager to have him gone, only to reveal Lucy stood there. Her eyes widened at the sight of the pair of them; Kol in last nights clothes, his hair ruffled, and Astoria in a vest top and a pair of shorts she'd thrown on.

"Uhm, hi." said Lucy, looking at Astoria then at Kol and back at Astoria again.

"Hey," said Astoria with a small smile.

"Aren't you going to introduce us, Astoria?" said Kol, turning to her with a smirk.

"Nope," replied Astoria shooting him a glare.

He turned back to Lucy with a smile. "I'm Kol."

"Lucy,"

"It's a pleasure, Lucy." he said before turning back to Astoria. "I'll see you soon, sweetheart."

"Urgh, just go!" she exclaimed in disgust, pushing him out the door. He winked at her, gave Lucy a small wave and then disappeared down the corridor.

"Who was _that?_" asked Lucy as soon as Kol vanished from sight.

"No one."

"Did he stay the night? Did you have sex?"

"_What?_ No! Of course not!"

"You totally did, didn't you?"

"No!"

Lucy raised her eyebrows and folded her arms over her chest. Clearly she saw right through Astoria's lies.

"Ok, yeah."

"_Nice! _He is a fine specimen of a man."

"He's also a first rate jackass."

"So why'd you sleep with him?"

"Oh, you know, a mixture of alcohol and poor judgement on my part." she paused for a moment. "What are you doing here, anyway?" she asked, keen to change the subject.

"Oh," said Lucy, suddenly looking awkward, "I came to apologise. About yesterday. Well, not just about yesterday but about every time I've ditched you for a guy."

"You don't need to apologise, Lucy."

"No, I do!"

"Seriously, Luce, I've already forgotten it."

She stepped aside and gestured for Lucy to come inside. She grinned and stepped over the threshold, shutting the door behind her. The two of them made their way into the living room and Lucy sat herself down on the sofa whilst Astoria poured them a drink.

"So, Kol, how'd you meet him?" asked Lucy as Astoria handed her a glass of blood.

She grimaced. "I met Kol in that bar the day I went postal."

Lucy gaped. "_What?_ I thought you killed everyone in that bar!"

"I did. Kol arrived afterwards. He helped calm me down and you know, helped me out a little."

"Is he a…?"

"Vampire? Yeah."

"So why is he a jackass? Surely he can't be that bad if he helped you out?"

"The second time I met him he was...weird. I get a strange vibe from him. He's calm but it's like there's something under the surface just waiting to erupt."

"And you decided to sleep with him…why?" asked Lucy incredulously, taking a sip from her drink.

"Like I said, alcohol and poor judgement."

"What's he like in the bedroom?"

Despite herself, she blushed. "Oh, he's ok." she lied, adopting an evasive air and hoping the subject would be promptly changed.

"Ok? I don't believe that for a second."

"Fine, he was incredible, amazing, he rocked my world. How's that?"

"Is it true?"

"Unfortunately." Astoria admitted grudgingly.

"Listen you yourself!" exclaimed Lucy, laughing. She set her glass down on the coffee table so that she could focus entirely on Astoria. "You had sex with a guy that is, to put it lightly,_ very_ blessed in the looks department and is great in bed, apparently, and you're irritated…?"

"Yes, what's your question?"

"My question is _why?_"

"Well firstly, I don't know him. I've met him all of three times. He could be trying to kill me for all I know. Secondly, he's an arrogant dick. Finally, he acts like he _knows _me. Which he doesn't, but he seems convinced that he knows me better than I think. It's ridiculous."

"He can act like he knows _me _any day of the week." said Lucy suggestively.

"Lucy! You have a boyfriend!" said Astoria reprovingly.

"Oh, please. I can fantasize, can't I? besides, Steve is certainly no Kol."

"Please don't tell me you _like _him?" said Astoria in exasperation.

"Why, are you jealous?" replied Lucy with a smirk, raising her eyebrows.

"No, he'd just be another name on a very long list of your boyfriends that I can't stand."

"You're such a drama queen," joked Lucy, reclaiming her drink from the coffee table. Astoria was finishing off her own drink when Lucy's cell started to ring.

"It's Steve," said Lucy, staring at the display for a moment before setting it down.

"Aren't you going to answer it?"

Lucy stared at it for a moment before looking up at her friend with a small smile. "No."

Astoria grinned. Small gesture as it was, it spoke volumes. For the first time in years, Lucy was electing to put her best friend's needs over her boyfriend's.

Though she didn't say so, Astoria appreciated it.


	9. Chapter 9

"So are you going to see him again?"

"Will you give it a rest already? I told you, no!"

"I'm sorry, who are we talking about?"

"Tori's new booty call." said Lucy with a wink.

"I'm sorry, _you _managed to score? What was he, blind or deaf? Or both?" said Steve snidely.

"Just a warning, Steve. I haven't fed in quite a while and your jugular is looking particularly appealing today." replied Astoria with a pleasant smile. Judging from her tone of voice and the smile on her face, they could have been talking about the weather or what was going to be on tv that night. It was only her actual words that gave it away.

"Careful, Steve, she's got a rather nasty, little bite on her, this one." interjected a voice from behind them.

"Oh my, God. _Seriously?_" snapped Astoria coming to a stop as Kol joined them. "Stalker much?"

"Well, maybe if you'd give me your number I wouldn't have to pop up unannounced." replied Kol with a grin.

"Do you just, like, sit outside my building and follow me when I come out?"

"Something like that."

Astoria turned to Steve and Lucy. Steve was looking thoroughly confused whereas Lucy looked quite amused. "Can we please go? I'm all out of patience where it comes to dealing with jackasses today."

"Actually," Kol cut in, "can I talk to you for a moment? In private."

"Is that really necessary?"

"Yes, if you value your life."

"Is that a _threat?_"

"No, it's an observation."

She glared at him for a moment before turning to face Steve and Lucy. She gave them a brief nod, gesturing for them to leave. Lucy grabbed Steve's arm and dragged him away. Astoria watched them hurry away, eager to put off the moment she had to turn and face Kol. She was sure that his only reason for wanting to talk to her alone was to antagonize her with sly references to the night they had spent together two days previously.

"What was _that?_" she heard Steve ask.

"Ssh! They can still hear you!" Lucy hissed, pulling on his arm.

"Your friend is weak, settling for a mortal. Doesn't she know how much better she could do, being a member of a superior race and all?" said Kol, his eyes fixed on the retreating pair.

"What do you want, Kol?" she said, reluctantly turning to face him.

"You're being watched."

"_What?_"

"Somebody is watching you."

"Yeah, I got it the first time. How do you know this?"

"You really think I've been following _you _all this time?" he said incredulously.

"Oh, I'm sorry, you're right, the idea that you're actually following someone else who is following me is much more believable. I don't know why I didn't think of that."

"I'm serious."

"I don't care. I don't need you to look out for me or whatever it is that you're doing, I can look after myself."

"I hope you're right."

"Do you seriously have nothing better to do with your time?"

Kol grinned. "I'm at a bit of a loose end."

* * *

><p>Although she'd played it down in front of him, Kol's news had unsettled her a little. What if it wasn't just some stupid lie he'd made up to scare her, as she'd originally thought? What if he was telling the truth and there was someone watching her every move? Would they attack her?<p>

So what if they did? She thought to herself. She could easily defend herself. She didn't know many vampires that were older than her, meaning that the chances of it being someone older and stronger than her were relatively slim.

When Lucy had asked her about it, she'd lied and told her that he'd just made some unfunny and unsubtle references before sauntering off.

She wasn't really sure why she'd lied, but if someone was watching her, she didn't want Lucy involved. She didn't want her getting hurt because of her.

Despite her insistence that she was perfectly able to defend herself, she couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. Though she was incredibly strong, it would be easy for a vampire younger than her, even a human, to significantly weaken her with vervain. She only hoped that her supposed stalker didn't have any undesirable intentions.

Though she told herself not to, she walked over to the window anyway and looked out of it. She didn't know what she was expecting to see. A dark, shadowy figure lurking on the side walk looking directly up at her? A threatening message etched into the ground of smeared on her window in blood?

She saw nothing. No ominous figure or strange messages. Nothing.

Kol had probably just been making it up. It seemed like the type of thing he would do just to mess with her head a little. He was probably a little irritated about the way she'd cold shouldered him after their brief encounter and had decided to scare her.

Very petty but reasonably effective.

She considered going over to Lucy's and spending the night just to give herself peace of mind, but Steve would, more likely than not, be there and would appreciate her company just as much as she appreciated his.

Besides, the last thing she wanted was to be kept up all night with Steve's incessant snoring. Having enhanced senses was a curse sometimes.

Anyway, if what Kol was saying was true then her stalker would only follow her there.

Given the choice, she'd much rather have Kol as a stalker than a potentially dangerous stranger. Despite the fact that Kol was most likely just as dangerous as any stranger, more so, probably, and was just as mysterious, she didn't really get the feeling that Kol wanted to harm her.

She was sure that if he wanted to, he would have done it by now. He could have done it the day that he'd met her, or two nights ago when she'd been sleeping soundly next to him.

She sighed and cursed herself under her breath. She was being stupid. She'd had plenty of enemies in the past and she'd taken them all out without blinking. She knew how to fight and she was good at it.

Astoria didn't take death lightly. She didn't like killing humans but she had no problem killing vampires. Technically, they were already dead anyway.


	10. Chapter 10

**England, 1920**

Even in darkness the summer air was warm and balmy. Astoria closed her eyes and let the breeze wash over her. She smiled. Being stood with her eyes closed in the warm air was almost enough to be able to imagine that she was relaxing outside in the sunshine, lay on the grass, perhaps, walking hand in hand with a lover down towards the river. Of course, she hadn't done any of that in centuries, but it was nice to pretend now and then.

"Darling!" came an irritable voice from behind her and she scowled. "What are you doing? Don't just stand there! Our dinner won't catch itself!" exclaimed Charles. He offered her his arm and she took it somewhat reluctantly and they began walking together down the dark, desolate streets. After so much time spent alone, having a companion was going to take some getting used to.

**England, 1929**

To say that Charles had become a little obsessed with Astoria over the years would be an incredible understatement. He'd plagued her with gifts and invitations to 'dates' for over ten years prior to their relationship. Despite her constant rebuffs, Charles had been very persistent and eventually Astoria had caved. Not because she had grown to like him or she found his behaviour endearing but because her way of life ensured that companions were hard to come by. The solitude hadn't bothered her at first, she enjoyed it actually, but after a few years it became wearisome so when Charles had made his next offer, she had graciously accepted.

It was a decision that she still, to this day, wasn't sure had been a particularly good one.

Whilst he was a good hunting partner, he was also very jealous, possessive and territorial.

Astoria didn't like being considered a possession. She was a person. A vampire. She could look after herself, she'd done just that for over seven hundred years. Nobody owned her.

So why didn't she leave? Drive a stake through his heart for his trouble?

Because she enjoyed the companionship, and the thrill and satisfaction of the kill was more than enough to eclipse her resentment of him.

That was until he decided that, in order to prevent other men from making eyes at her, she would stay home whilst he went out and fetched their victims.

"How refreshingly sexist of you, Charles." she chided him when he made this suggestion.

"Come now, Astoria. I'm the man of the house, it's my job."

"Don't pretend this isn't a ploy to keep me locked up in the house so you don't have to run the risk of losing me."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"The only one who's being ridiculous is you, and quite frankly I've had enough. I'm leaving."

"You're what?"

"Leaving, running away, going it alone, however you want to phrase it."

Charles laughed uneasily. "I hope this is a joke, Astoria."

"Not at all," she'd already removed all her belongings from the house, so she was free to leave right then, an action which Charles did not take at all kindly to, "goodbye."

She made to pull open the door and he grabbed her arm, yanking her backwards. "Don't your dare turn your back on me, woman."

She pulled her arm out of his grasp and slapped him round the face. "I am _not _your property, Charles! I am older than you and therefore stronger. I think it's about time you showed me a little respect before I reach into your chest and pull out that heart of yours."

**America, present day**

Almost two weeks had passed since Kol's warning and nothing strange or out of the ordinary had happened, leading her to believe that Kol had in fact been trying to scare her.

She hadn't heard from Kol, either, since that day. Perhaps he'd realised how uninterested she was in him and his 'warning' had been his final attempt at irritating her.

Either way, she didn't care. Kol had stopped following her around and for that she was glad.

She was carefree, Lucy was doting over Steve, Steve was being unbearably annoying and all was right in the world again.

* * *

><p>After an hour or two spent painting Lucy's living room (Steve had insisted that the pair of them do it without so much as an ounce of his help because they were vampires and would get it done much faster. In fact, they'd completed painting the room in under half an hour, but as far as Steve knew, it had taken them a couple of hours. When they'd finished they'd sat around and had some leisure time without Steve, who thought they were hard at work.<p>

As much as she loved Steve, it was nice to have some time away from him, Lucy had admitted.

* * *

><p>Upon arriving home, Astoria had taken a shower to wash away the specks of paint that had found its way onto her skin and into her hair. She'd dressed herself in a simple top and jeans and let her hair dry naturally into loose curls and was just leaning against the kitchen counter, considering her options for the night when a knock on the door interrupted her train of thought.<p>

She made her way across the room and pulled open the door to find nothing and no one. She frowned but brushed it off. Maybe she'd misheard, or perhaps it was a bunch of kids messing around.

An hour and a half later, just as she was settling down on the couch after downing a substantial amount of blood, another knock sounded through the apartment.

She groaned; she was sure that when she pulled open the door she was going to find nothing, or someone she didn't want to talk to like a door-to-door sales person, but if she didn't answer it, it would bug her.

Unwillingly, she got up from her couch and made her way slowly to the door. She pulled it open with a sigh to find herself face to face with one of the last people she would have expected to find standing there.

"Charles!" she exclaimed in surprise.

Tall, blonde and imposing, Charles glowered at her unpleasantly. "Hello, Astoria." he said, pulling out a gun from underneath his coat and aiming it at her forehead. "Nice to see you."

He pulled the trigger and she was aware of nothing but the black smoke that seemed to engulf her.


	11. Chapter 11

Astoria drifted in and out of consciousness for God knows how long, losing all sense of time. When she finally awoke properly she found herself in a simple wooden chair. Her hands were fastened in the iron manacles attached to the arms of the chair and her feet were trapped in the cuffs chained to the chair legs. A burning pain around her torso told her that the iron cuffs weren't the only form of restraint that she had been given. She looked down and saw that a length of rope that had obviously been soaked in vervain had been wrapped around her and the chair multiple times so that if she somehow managed to break free of her iron chains, she'd still be tethered to the chair.

The bullet that had forced her into unconsciousness in the first place had been removed from her brain, thank God. She could feel the dried blood on her forehead where the wound had been and she wondered how long she'd been out.

Physically, she felt weak and incredibly so. She could tell that there was vervain in her bloodstream, so any chance she'd had of breaking out of the manacles was gone, unless she managed to feed. Somehow, she sensed that wasn't going to be an option.

She could tell that the skin underneath her top where the rope was tied was burnt and blistered from the vervain. The slightest movement caused her pain; it hurt to breathe.

Astoria raised her gaze to take in the room before her. It was an average sized room bathed in darkness. The only source of light came from a single candle sat on a small table. A reminder of how easy it would be to set her on fire and kill her, perhaps?

Next to the table sat a comfortable yet worn down looking armchair which was being occupied by her captor.

Charles was sitting quite comfortably and was watching her every move. His expression told her that he had every intention of causing her a considerable amount of pain. His eyes were full of such hatred.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty." he said when she met his gaze. Though his tone was jovial, his expression lost none of the hostility or the detestation.

"Are you going to kill me, Charles?" Astoria replied in a voice that was a few decibels from being nonexistent.

"Oh, not quite yet. I daresay I will eventually, but for the time being I have other plans for you."

"What plans?"

Without answering, he stood up and made his way slowly over to a window directly opposite her. Just before he reached it, her eyes fell on a small, insignificant ring with a blue stone.

No, it couldn't be.

She glanced down at her hand and sure enough, the finger that the ring usually lived on was bare. She looked up at Charles in shock and just about caught the sadistic smirk on his lips before he pulled open the blinds and the sunlight flooded into the room.

The pain was indescribable. Every cell in her body was on fire, it had to be, it was the only explanation for the unspeakable pain. She barely noticed the scream that left her lips, all she knew was agony. She was on fire, she could feel the flames engulfing her body. She only hoped that it would take her life quickly and that her suffering would be over.

The fire stopped burning her just as quickly as it had begun. The sunlight disappeared as the blinds were drawn back over the window. Her skin, which was red raw and blistered from exposure to the sun without her ring, was healing. It was slower than usual, but it was healing nonetheless.

"That was fun." said Charles, sitting himself back down in his armchair.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked him, her voice ragged and hoarse from screaming. "What did I do?"

"You left." he hissed, spitting the words out vehemently.

"Wha-but, Charles that was…Charles that was seventy years ago!"

"That, my love, is what you call luring someone into a false sense of security. I knew that if I tried to kill you right away you'd be expecting it. You're stronger than me, I needed to catch you off guard." he paused and surveyed her over the bridge of his fingers. "My plan was almost ruined by that idiot who fancies you. He noticed me hanging around. I would have kidnapped you there and then but I knew he was watching me, so I backed off for a while."

In her state it took her a few moments to realise that he was talking about Kol.

"Kol? Kol doesn't fancy me." she said bleakly. It didn't really matter whether or not he fancied her, the possibility of her ever seeing him again was a slim one, but it was the only response she could think of. She wasn't sure how to react to his plans to kidnap her.

"Is that what he told you?" said Charles, chuckling softly to himself. "I suppose you're right. What he feels for you is much stronger."

"What are you talking about?" she said irritably, "I barely know him."

"No, I don't suppose you do know him all that well." said Charles, smirking again.

"What does that even mean?"

"It means that there's a lot you don't know about him."

"And you do?"

"I know more than you."

Astoria frowned. She couldn't quite grasp what he was saying. Did Charles _know _Kol? Did Kol know Charles? Kol had been the one to warn her about Charles in the first place, surely if he'd have known him he would have said something? Why would he bother to tip her off if he wasn't going to give her all the relevant details?

"Tell me, then."

"Maybe later," he rose from his chair and pulled something out from underneath his coat. Her body stiffened the moment her eyes fell on it. Had he changed his mind? Was he going to dive the stake through her heart and be done with it? Surely not, he hadn't administered even half of the pain that his hateful and sadistic behaviour promised.

She eyed him and the stake carefully as he approached waiting for the moment of impact in her chest, but it never came. Not in her chest, anyway.

He bent down so that he was on eye level with her "I have some errands to run. Be a good girl otherwise this," he indicated the stake, "will go through your heart." He grasped the back of the chair with one hand and used the other to plunge the stake through her stomach.

The pained groan that issued through her lips was just a fraction of the torturous pain she was feeling, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

Charles straightened up and dusted his hands off. He gave a happy sigh.

"I'll see you later." he winked before turning away from her and walking briskly out of the room.


	12. Chapter 12

After Charles left, Astoria spent many fruitless hours trying to free herself from the confines of the chair. Her wrists and her ankles kept bleeding from the constant friction against the manacles and she was sure that her injuries were going to stop healing soon.

With a cry of frustration she yanked her hands upwards in another futile attempt to break through the metal. On any normal day she'd have been able to snap the metal in two within seconds.

The stake in her stomach was doing nothing to help her efforts, either. The wood was sapping the energy from her with every passing second. She'd end up passed out again but despite the fact that every movement caused an immeasurable amount of pain, she was determined that she would fight against her restraints until she passed out from exertion.

A jolt of anger surged through her as she thought of Charles's stupid, sneering face. How dare he treat her this way? She was hundreds of years older than him! She was his superior! If and when she got out of the sticky situation she was currently in, she vowed to herself that she would cause him a world of pain for his trouble.

Her last thought before she slipped into unconsciousness was how much she was going to enjoy seeing his face contorted in agony when she got her revenge.

* * *

><p>"Rise and shine!"<p>

Astoria was jolted awake by Charles pulling the stake out of her stomach. He cupped her chin and pulled her face up for inspection.

"Hmmm, you're looking a bit peaky," he turned around and picked up a glass of blood from the small table. Her eyes widened. Was that for her? She tried to suppress the excitement that started to twist in her stomach. If she drank that, even that small amount, she was sure that she'd be able to break free.

"Here," he said, holding the glass to her lips. He tipped the liquid into her mouth and stood back to watch as she started spluttering and choking on the vile liquid. The beautiful, intoxicating liquid had been defiled with vervain.

"I will kill you in your sleep." she hissed. Instead of looking fearful, as she'd hoped, he laughed. She supposed she must look a sight, all chained up, filthy with blood dripping down her chin.

"Not if I get you first," he said cheerfully.

"Remember who you're talking to, Charles. I'm centuries older than you. You might have the upper hand right now but I'm smarter than you. I'm going to slaughter you."

"I'll believe it when I see it!" he said, holding up his own glass of blood in her direction before drinking from it. "Hey!" he said, putting down his empty glass as though an idea had just struck him. "You know, it's a lovely day. You should really enjoy the sunshine!"

"Don't you dare. If you open those blinds I will tear you apart!" she threatened, aware that her words would have no effect on him whatsoever. It was hard to take the word of a vampire chained up and vervained very seriously.

"I look forward to it," he said with a chuckle before pulling open the blinds and letting the evil rays of the sun penetrate the room.

* * *

><p>Astoria guessed that she'd passed out after Charles had decided to burn her alive because the next thing she knew, she was coming around to the sound of a shrill and incredibly annoying ringing sound.<p>

At first, she thought it was just a figment of her imagination but when she opened her eyes she found Charles sat in his chair holding her cell phone, which was still ringing incessantly.

"It's for you." he said, holding the phone out to her as a grin crept across his face. "Shall I get it for you? It's from an unknown number so it can't be anyone important."

When she didn't answer, Charles grinned and answered it.

"Hello, Tori's phone?"

"_Where's Tori?_" she heard the voice on the other end ask. She was too weak to even bother to identify it, though.

"Tori's a little tied up right now," he said, chuckling at his own joke. _It's funny because it's true_ he mouthed to her.

"_Tell me where she is._" the voice demanded.

"May I ask who's calling?"

"_Kol_."

Astoria frowned. Why was Kol calling? What did he want? How did he even have her number?

"Oh, hello Kol. Astoria doesn't want to talk to you."

"_Really?_"

"Well, I say she _doesn't, _it's more like she _can't_."

"_Tell me where she is, you abominable bastard, before I tear you limb from limb._"

"I'm terrified," said Charles dryly, "anyway, I must dash. Nice talking to you, Kol. Ciao." he hung up the phone and placed it down on the table. "Did you catch any of that?"

"Mhmm," replied Astoria, struggling to keep her eyes open. She was _so _weak.

"See? Somebody has a crush on you!"

"Does it look like I _care?_" snapped Astoria, dragging her gaze up from the floor to meet Charles's gaze. "You have me chained up, covered in vervain, you're burning me alive and you're pouring vervain-laced blood down my throat and you _THINK I CARE IF SOMEONE HAS A FUCKING CRUSH ON ME? I WOULDN'T CARE IF HE'D JUST DECLARED HIS UNDYING LOVE FOR ME!_" she roared angrily, straining against her chains.

"Fiesty!" laughed Charles, "careful, love. The sun is still up."


	13. Chapter 13

"Hand me that," Astoria heard a voice say. She was too lost in the darkness to distinguish who the voice belonged to. She could barely make any sense of the words. She felt someone tip her head back before some kind of was pressed between her lips and a sweet substance flooded into her mouth.

It was beautiful and fragrant, but most of all, it was empowering. Blood. Not the vervain-laced poison that Charles had force-fed her, no, this was clean, pure blood. Whoever that voice belonged to was a friend.

After a moment, she began taking in the liquid herself, no longer needing to have her head held back so that the blood would fall down her throat.

Her eyes slowly opened and she found herself looking down at Kol who was kneeling in front of her.

"Are you alright?" he asked her, looking unusually sincere.

"Of course she's not!" came a voice from the other side of the room. She gaze followed the voice and found Lucy. Lucy smiled when Astoria caught her eyes. "It's so dark in here, why are the blinds closed?" asked Lucy, pulling them open.

Astoria didn't have time to warn her, it was only when the light hit her and she began shrieking in response to the intense burning sensation that she was able to alert them that she was defenceless against the sun.

"Where's your ring?" demanded Lucy, speeding over to her. "Where is it? Does he have it?"

"_Close the fucking curtains!_" Astoria cried, writhing as much as her restraints allowed as her skin blistered. "_CLOSE THEM, YOU MORON!_"

As soon as the room was plunged into darkness again, her blisters began to heal. Faster than they had before, because she was stronger now. Strong enough to heal but not strong enough to break through the metal, not yet, anyway.

"Where's your ring?" asked Kol.

"There," she said, indicating the small band of silver on the floor. Kol retrieved and and slipped it on her finger. "Give me the rest of that blood," she said, nodding to the blood bag on the table. Kol went to snap the manacles so that her hands would be free but she shook her head. "No, leave them, just give me the rest of that blood and then leave."

"_Leave?_" said Lucy incredulously, coming forwards. "Why would we leave?"

"Because Charles and I have some unfinished business," she explained coldly, "he's kept me chained up and tortured me for days…I'd like to return the favour."

Lucy still looked bewildered, but a grin was creeping across Kol's face.

"If you're not going to leave, at least stay out of sight. Charles is mine."

* * *

><p>Astoria sat in the darkness, waiting.<p>

She wasn't weak anymore. She could _feel _the energy pulsing through her body.

She was going to give Charles a taste of his own medicine. She was going to _destroy _him.

She sat in the dark, waiting for the moment that she would pull herself out of the metal and the rope and see the surprise and the fear on that arrogant face of his.

She didn't have to wait long.

"Such a lovely day!" he said, coming through the door. This was the norm for him. He'd come back to her, make some reference to what a nice day it was and then open the blinds, exposing her to the deadly rays of the sun before the real torture started. Now that she had her ring, she'd be the one laughing.

He smirked at her as she watched him make his way over to the window. He pulled open the blinds, as he always did, and turned to face her as the sunlight washed over her.

Instead of the crippling pain that she'd felt every other time, she felt nothing but the pleasant warmth from the sun. She let a smile curve her lips upwards as his face slackened in shock. After a moment or so his eyes fell on her ring. His inhaled angrily and took a step forward. "How did you get that?"

Grinning, she yanked her hands upwards, releasing them from their iron prisons. The angry, red wealds from the manacles started to heal. She pulled at the rope around her torso, tearing it apart as though it were made of nothing but tissue paper. She stood up and kicked each of her feet forwards in turn so that the chains snapped.

She was filthy and covered in blood but she was strong again.

"Do you remember what I said, Charles?"

He was staring at her in shock, apparently so much that he couldn't move. He opened his mouth a couple of times to speak, but nothing came out. He gave what he must have imagined was a subtle glance at the door.

"If you try to run, I'll catch you. You know that."

"How did you…?"

"Oh, I had a little help," right on cue, Lucy and Kol walked out from around the corner and stood on either side of her.

"You need both of them to fight against me?" he sneered, albeit a little nervously.

"You think that they're here to fight you? Oh, no. They're just here to watch."

Without another word, she sped across the room and wrapped one of her hands around his neck before forcing him down into the chair that she'd been incarcerated in. She grabbed a length of chain and wrapped it around his torso, pulling at it so that he would find it incredibly hard to breath. She grabbed the very same stake that he'd plunged into her stomach and forced it into his. He cried out in pain, though he attempted to stifle it by gritting his teeth. She grabbed a small vial of vervain from the table, one that she supposed would have been used on her, and poured it into his mouth, relishing the sharp gasp he gave as it burned its way down his throat.

Finally, she pulled his daylight ring from his finger and threw it across the room where it hit the wall.

"I've been looking forward to this part," she said, sauntering over to the window, "it's such a nice day, wouldn't you agree?" she pulled open the blinds and let the light burn and agonise him, just as it had her.

He screamed long and hard as his skin almost burst into flame. Astoria laughed.

She closed the blinds and made her way back over to him. She knelt down in front of him and looked right into his eyes. "I'm going to leave you here now, to rot and to desiccate. I'm told it's quite painful. So painful, I can't even imagine. If you ever manage to break free, I advise you to stay away from me, because if I ever see you again, Charles, I will rip you apart. Understood?"

When he didn't answer, she broke his neck.

"You done?" asked Lucy, staring down at Charles with a mixture of dislike and revulsion.

"I'm done."


	14. Chapter 14

"Are you sure you're ok?"

Astoria looked up to see Kol leaning against the doorframe of her room. He had his arms folded over his chest and he was watching her with what could have been a concerned expression.

"Where's Lucy?"

"She left. Said you'd want to be alone."

Astoria didn't reply. She lay back down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. She was thinking about something Charles had said. It didn't make sense. Why had he said that Kol had feelings for her? And not just some silly little crush, Charles had made it sound like Kol was in love with her or something.

Well, that was impossible. They barely knew each other.

But it didn't seem like something Charles had made up on the spur of the moment to try and get to her. In fact, it had seemed like Charles knew Kol to some extent. Enough to know how Kol felt about her at least.

It couldn't be true, though. Kol didn't have feelings for her. He was arrogant and snide and didn't care about her at all.

_He did save you, twice_, said a voice at the back of her mind. That was true, but he was a dick most of the time.

Almost as though it had been unlocked by the events of the past few days, a long-lost memory from her childhood swam into her mind's eye, a memory from so long ago that she was surprised she even remembered it…

"_Whatever is the matter, darling?" asked her mother, kneeling down to get a better look at her daughter who had come running into the house in a huff. Her hair was mussed and there were grass stains on her dress. _

"_I was playing with Henry and William-"_

_Her mother sighed. As the youngest of 6 children and the only girl, Astoria was always tagging along with her brothers in an attempt to join in the fun and often ended up with some sort of injury. "What have I told you about your brothers? They forget how delicate you are, my love."_

"_No, it wasn't them. It was Arthur,"_

"_The vicar's boy?"_

"_Yes. He tripped me over and laughed at me and then he ruffled my hair." _

_Eve struggled to keep a straight face. Her little girl looked so outraged. She smoothed down Astoria's hair. "I'll let you into a little secret, sweetheart." Her daughter's eyes lit up and she moved closer, eager to hear what her mother had to say. "Sometimes when a boy likes a girl, he teases her and plays silly little tricks on her."_

"_Why?" asked Astoria, her eyes wide and wondering as she pondered why on earth a boy would do that._

"_How else would get her attention?"_

Kol was still leaning against the doorframe, watching her. "Tori?"

"What?"

"Do you want me to stay?"

She laughed. He was being nice to her now, but she didn't expect it to last. It wouldn't be long until he was back to his snide remarks.

"No, I don't want you to stay!" she said incredulously and to her surprise, he looked a little hurt. Why? Why did he look like that? It _couldn't _be because he _liked _her. No, she refused to even consider it.

It would be because she was being ungrateful. Yes, that was it. He had just helped rescue her from a torturous situation and here she was laughing at his offer to look after her further.

"I mean, I'm fine, thank you." she amended, smiling at him.

Kol returned the smile, turned and walked away. She watched his retreating back and before she could stop her self she sat up and called his name. She had to ask him.

"Kol, wait!"

"Yes?" he replied, taking the few steps he had taken away, back to her doorway.

"Can I…Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead," he looked a little confused.

"When I was with Charles…he said something," Kol raised an eyebrow, "something about the way you feel about me."

"What do you mean?" he said sharply, coming into the room.

"At first he said that you like me…" she said slowly, "but then he said that your feelings for me are much deeper than that. It sounded like he knew you."

Kol stared at her for a long moment. It was the same stare he'd used the first time they'd met, it was _so _intense that she had to look away.

"I don't know how he would know that…I've never met him before in my life." he said finally, lowering his gaze.

"So…it's true? The way he said you feel about me, I mean?"

Kol paused for a moment. "Of course not," he said with a laugh, "I hardly know you."

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

The atmosphere between them had become incredibly awkward. Both of them were staring in opposite directions and the tension between them was so thick, magnified by the awkward silence, that it could have been cut with a knife.

"I should go then." said Kol finally, breaking the awkward silence.

"Yeah, uhm, well, thanks. You know, for saving me and all that."

"Any time."

She watched him walk away again, but this time she didn't call him back. He wasn't being truthful with her. Being a skilled liar herself, she knew all too well when people were lying to her. Since he was older than her, surely he was just as good of a liar as she was? Had he reacted that way on _purpose?_

He was hiding something from her. She knew that, she could see it in the way he had just spoken to her.

She was curious as to what it was, of course she was, but there had to be a reason he was keeping it from her. Did she really want to know? What if he was keeping it from her for a good reason? What if it changed her life, and not for the better?

_Or what if you're just reading too much into it? _said the voice at the back of her mind, _what if he meant absolutely nothing, maybe he was just tired after rescuing your useless ass._

"Shut up." Astoria muttered, trying to silence the voice in her head, even though that she knew it was simply herself, her conscience, trying to convince her that there was nothing, nothing that she had to concern herself with.


	15. Chapter 15

Two weeks after the incident with Charles, she found herself outside of Kol's apartment. Ever since that painfully awkward conversation they'd had in her room, he'd been avoiding her. He'd sent her calls to voicemail, ignored her texts and stopped popping up wherever she went.

It was something to do with the conversation they'd had. It had to be.

Lucy had told her to let it go. She- Astoria- didn't like him anyway, so what was the problem? He'd left her alone, like she wanted.

The problem was that he was keeping something from her, something that almost certainly involved her. He wouldn't lie about it otherwise, would he?

She'd tried to convince herself that she didn't want to know, but she did. She needed to know.

So there she was, stood outside his apartment, trying to build up the courage to confront him about his big secret.

She was about to knock when the door was pulled open from the other side to reveal Kol. He looked surprised to see her so he couldn't have known she was there.

"Er, Tori, hello. I was just about to go out, actually…" he trailed off.

"We need to talk."

"Do we?" he asked, feigning ignorance. "What about?"

"You know."

He stared at her for a moment, obviously contemplating slamming the door in her face, before stepping aside. "Come in," he said, resignedly. He led her through to the living room and turned to face her. He was wringing his hands together and he looked agitated.

"What is it?"

"You're hiding something from me. Something that involves me, aren't you?"

He was silent for so long that Astoria thought he wasn't going to answer. Maybe he would just refuse, or evasively brush it off, she thought to herself, which is why his reply took her by surprise.

"Yes, I am." he said finally, meeting her gaze properly for the first time.

"That's why you've been avoiding me, because I started asking questions?"

He nodded.

She started to feel uneasy. What was it that he was keeping from her that was so awful that he had to keep it a complete secret.

"Tell me."

He shook his head. "I wouldn't know where to start."

"Start at the beginning!"

"I can't…you can't know, it'd be too much of a disruption in both of our lives, trust me."

"How can I trust you? I barely know you and you're keeping some big secret from me. I need to know, Kol. If it has anything to do, even in the smallest way, I need to know."

"Tori, please."

"Kol!"

"I can't…"

"Charles knew, didn't he?" she said suddenly. "You lied, when you said you'd never met him. What does he know? Tell me, Kol. Tell me or I swear I'll stake you myself."

For some reason, this amused Kol. A small smile graced his lips and he looked up at her. "That wouldn't do much harm."

"I don't understand…a stake to the heart…that would, that would kill you!"

"No, it wouldn't."

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you know about the Originals?"

"The Originals?" said Astoria sceptically. "I know that they're the first family of vampires and I know that they're dangerous, more so than the rest of us. I've never actually met anyone who knows them personally, but I suppose they must be out there somewh-" she trailed off, comprehension dawning on her face as what he was trying say hit her. "Oh, my God." she whispered, paralysed by fear. The Originals were legends. They were infinitely stronger and faster than any other vampire alive. They had the power to compel other vampires and, from what she had heard, they were virtually invincible. She had to go, she had to get out of there. Surely now that she'd figured out his secret he'd kill her. She turned to leave but Kol was a second ahead of her.

"I'm not going to hurt you." he said, taking a hold of her shoulders to prevent her from leaving. "If I was going to hurt you I would have done it by now. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of saving you. Twice."

"Look, just let me go, I promise you'll never see me again. Just let me go."

"Tori, listen to me. I'm not going to hurt you!" he slid his hands from her shoulders and down her arms to take her hands in his. "Please listen to me."

She tried to pull her hands out his grasp, but his hold was too strong. For some reason, she'd descended into a blind panic. She was convinced he was going to hurt her, to try and kill her, despite the fact he'd told her otherwise.

"Please just let me go, Kol!"

"I'll tell you everything, I promise. Everything."

She pulled her hands from his grasp and pushed against his chest. He staggered backwards a few steps, knocking into the coffee table behind him. The force of the impact sent a few objects falling to the floor; a mug, that cracked in two, a fountain pen and his wallet. The wallet opened when it hit the floor and expelled a few hundred dollar bills and a photograph. Both of them looked down and Astoria saw Kol stiffen. She wasn't really sure why until her gaze landed on the photograph.

Slowly, she bent down and picked it up. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She straightened back up, her eyes not leaving the photograph for even a second. What did this mean?

She tore her gaze away from the photograph to look up at Kol. He was watching her carefully, like she might snap at any moment. And with good reason.

She opened her mouth a couple of times, trying to fabricate some sort of dialog, but she only ended up closing it again when she came up short. She didn't know what to say or how to react.

"Tori…" Kol began, stopping when she held up her hand to silence him. She lowered her gaze back down to the photograph and opened her mouth again, finally finding her voice.

"Kol," she said in a measured voice, "why do you have a photograph of me?"


	16. Chapter 16

"Kol, this is me."

She held up the photograph and he stared at her.

"Why do you have a photograph of me? Where did you get this?"

The photograph was an old one, a hundred years old at least. It was in black and white and it was fairly battered, but there was no mistake, the girl in the photograph was her. She didn't remember the photo ever being taken, but it was her, unless she had a long-lost twin or something.

"Kol?"

"I took it." he says bleakly, tearing his gaze away from her and the photograph and fixating on the floor.

"What do you mean you took it? That's impossible, this photograph is from at least a hundred years ago."

"How else would I have got it?"

"I don't know! That's why I'm asking!"

He took a deep breath and brought his gaze up to meet hers. He looked…conflicted. Troubled, even. Why? Purely because she'd found the photo or because it now meant he had to explain himself? Whatever his reason was for having the photograph, whatever he was keeping from her, wasn't going to be one of those things that had a perfectly reasonable explanation, it wasn't going to be something that had her sighing in relief and saying 'oh, fair enough!'

It was going to be big.

"Tori," he began slowly, taking a careful step towards her. "There are things that you don't know about your past. Things about us."

"_Us? _There is no us."

"Yes, there is. Or, was, I suppose."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that there are memories of you and I that have been erased from your memory." he paused for what seemed like an eternity. "Tori…I was in love with you. I _am _in love with you."

"Is this…is this a joke? Because it's not funny, Kol."

"It's not a joke. We were in love. We had a relationship."

"Then why don't I remember it?" she demanded, "if we were so madly in love why is it I have no memory of it? Why is it I don't know you?"

"After we were turned, my family scattered. Our father began to hunt down Nik, and Nik began to hunt down us. I managed to stay off his radar for centuries, but he caught up with me eventually. He drove a dagger through my heart, killing me, and he compelled you to forget ever laying eyes on me. When I walked in on you in that bar I was shocked…I thought he'd killed you. When I realised you had no idea who I was…" he trailed off into nothingness.

"You're lying, you have to be. It isn't possible. Surely, even if I didn't remember you, I'd feel something for you. Surely my body would remember you even if my mind didn't?" She was clutching at straws now, desperate to find a way out, determined to prove him wrong. Because if he was right, that would mean that everything she thought she knew about herself could be wrong. What if his brother had altered other memories, changed her whole life?

"I'm not lying." he said, his voice devoid of any emotion.

"I don't believe you!"

He hesitated for a moment. He looked down at the floor again and then back up at her, his expression was unreadable.

"When you were a child, you were afraid of the dark-"

"What are you doing?"

"Just listen. When you were a child, you were afraid of the dark, so much that you couldn't sleep on your own because you were afraid of the monsters. Your parents and your brothers would take it in turns to watch over you. They'd sit with you in the candlelight, tell you a story, sometimes your mother would even sing, until you fell asleep. As you grew older, they eventually stopped, but your fear of the dark didn't. When your twin brother realised, he'd sneak into your room at night and sleep in your bed with you so that you weren't alone." he paused, "after you were turned, you stopped being afraid when you realised that you were one of the monsters."

She stared at him in disbelief. What he was saying, every word of it, was true and yet she'd never told anyone.

"How do you know that?" she whispered, though she was sure she already knew the answer.

"You told me."

Could it be true? Could the whole twisted scenario actually be true? She wouldn't have believed it but…he had no reason to lie about it. It would explain why he sometimes acted like he knew her…because he _did _know her. The girl she reminded him of, the one he used to know, it wasn't some girl that just looked like her. No, it _was _her. The girl she'd been back then.

"You know what?" she said, "I can't deal with this right now. Here," she thrust the photograph at him and made to leave. She had to get out of there, she needed to get away from him, she needed to _breathe_ so that she could get her head around what he was saying.

"Don't go!" he pleaded, grabbing her wrist. "Please, I'm sorry you had to find out like this."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded, trying to pull her wrist out of his grasp.

"I was going to, I swear, I just didn't know how to. Don't go, please. We can work through this, we always do. I already lost you once, please don't leave me again. I lov-"

"Stop! Stop it! You can't just spring something like this on me and expect me to just, I don't know, love you! I don't, ok? I don't love you. Maybe I did once, but I don't remember it, Kol. Do you expect me to just automatically fall in love with you because I apparently used to? I don't know what I was like when you met me, but I'm not that girl anymore. I'm not the person you fell in love with and you _don't _know me."

His grip on her wrist loosened as her words hit him. He was looking at her like she'd just smacked him in the face.

She pulled her wrist out of his slack grasp and turned her back on him.

"Where are you going?" he asked as she began to walk away.

"I'm leaving."

"No, don't, don't g-DON'T WALK AWAY FROM ME, ASTORIA!" He yelled as the front door swung shut behind her. He didn't come after her, as she'd expected, but she heard what sounded like glass smashing and then Kol roaring in frustration.


	17. Chapter 17

As usual, the small town of Mystic Falls was as dull and dreary as it had ever been. Although the 'founders' tried to brighten it up with numerous events that meant absolutely nothing to anybody but the founding families, it remained nothing but a small, tragic little town.

Kol couldn't understand why his brother was so intent on them building a life as a family there. Of course, after it was revealed that Finn was working with their mother to kill them all, family life had become a little…strained, to say the least. Finn and Esther had fled, Elijah had left but Rebekah and Nik remained, trying to keep what little was left of their family alive.

"Niklaus!" Kol thundered as soon as he passed over the threshold of their family manor.

"Kol, what are you doing here?" he turned to find Rebekah stood at the top of the stairs.

"Where's Nik?"

"What's wrong?"

"Bekah, tell me where our brother is."

She shrugged. "Probably out trying to buy Caroline's affection. I don't know why he bothers, Caroline is nothing but a-"

"Do you _really_ want to finish that sentence, Rebekah?" came Nik's voice from behind them.

"You know how I feel about her."

Nik glared at her for a moment before turning to Kol. "What can I do for you, Kol?"

"You're coming with me." hissed Kol angrily.

"Oh? Where are we going?" said Nik pleasantly, ignoring his brother's blatant fury.

"You're going to reverse the compulsion on my girlf-on my…on her. Just give her back her memories, Nik."

"Oh, the _girl_. You found her again, then? I have to say, I'm a little surprised. Oh, yes, I remember her. Feisty little thing, she was. She put up a good fight, actually. It would have been cruel not to make her forget, she was _devastated _when I drove that dagger through your heart." said Nik reminiscently.

"Mikael is dead. You have no reason to keep her own memories from her anymore."

"True. Come back to me when I'm feeling particularly generous and I might just consider it."

Kol stared at him. He couldn't be serious, surely? He had no reason, no motive whatsoever to keep her memories from her.

"What are yo-"

"What he means, brother, is that Caroline turned him down, _again_ and he's in a bad mood. When are you going to get it, Nik? She doesn't like you." said Rebekah as she climbed back up the stairs, leaving the two of them alone.

"Please, brother," he pleaded, though it went against everything he believed in. Though Niklaus was older than him, he didn't _beg _him for anything. Niklaus was the bastard child, the illegitimate one, not him. But this was one of the few cases where he would go against his basic instinct and do what he had to, to get what he wanted, even if it did involve getting down on his knees and pleading his case like a human. "It's the least you can do after keeping me locked in a box for a hundred years."

"Maybe some other time,"

* * *

><p>"Come on, spill it."<p>

"What?"

"You have been moping around for the past week like someone died. What's up?"

It was true. Ever since her startling discovery she'd been a little out of it. She didn't know how she was supposed to react. What was the standard protocol for someone who had lost a huge chunk of their life?

"Nothing." Astoria replied finally. She didn't want to talk about it. How could she when she barely understood it herself?

"Is it Kol?"

Astoria bristled at the mere mention of his name. She was still angry at him. _So_ angry. How could he have kept such a thing from her? It wasn't some petty little secret that didn't mean anything…if what he said was true, then she had not only known him, but been in love with him, too. Love wasn't something that came easily for Astoria. She didn't like letting her guard down and having someone so close to her that she knew her well enough to hurt her. Daniel, of course, was the exception, but she had been with him when she was human, back when her biggest problem was the fear of being caught by her parents sneaking out. When she'd turned, things had changed.

"I can't talk about it, Lucy."

"So there is something up?"

"Lucy, I _really _can't talk about it. I don't even understand it myself. Maybe when I've figured it out, got my head around it…"

"Did he _do _something to you? Did he hurt you?"

"No! No, it's nothing like that. It's just…complicated."

Lucy watched her for a moment, biting on her lip worriedly. She supposed, from Lucy's point of view, she must be acting rather strangely. She hadn't been out of her apartment in days out of fear of running into Kol; what would she say to him if she ran into him? She couldn't just ignore him, but she couldn't act like nothing was wrong, either.

It seemed like Kol had started to avoid her too, though. At first he'd bombarded her with calls, texts and voicemails. She'd ignored the calls, failed to reply to the text messages and deleted the voicemails without listening to them. She didn't want to listen to him go on about how they could sort it out, how he would do anything to make it right because he _loved _her. Eventually the calls had stopped, the texts had dwindled into nothing and the voicemails had disappeared.

For her, the idea of being in love was almost alien, and it made her uncomfortable knowing how Kol felt about her when she didn't return his feelings, and how could she? For her, he was just some guy she'd met not long ago who'd helped her out a little but also done his best to get on her nerves. She had no memory of him whatsoever, nothing that connected him to her past. That's why she couldn't understand how he felt about her, because she had no memory of it!

If she had just the tiniest connection, the smallest thread that tied Kol to that time in her life to prove 100% that what he was saying was true then she could wrap her head around it, but she didn't. Whenever she thought about it, she came up against a solid wall and no matter how hard she tried to push past it, it remained as solid as ever.


	18. Chapter 18

A knock at the door pulled Astoria out of her reverie and, thankfully, diverted Lucy's attention away from her.

"Are you expecting anyone?" asked Lucy, frowning over at the closed door.

"No," said Astoria, pulling herself up off the sofa for the first time all day. She pushed back her hair and made her way over. Lucy followed, keen to see who was interrupting her unsuccessful attempts to get Astoria out of the apartment. She pulled open the door and was surprised, and a little dismayed, to find the one person she was trying to avoid.

"Hi." said Kol to Astoria, not even bothering to acknowledge Lucy. He looked worn out, like he hadn't slept for a while, which he probably hadn't. If she was having trouble sleeping after their last conversation then he certainly was.

"Hey…" she said a little hesitantly. She shot a sideways glance at Lucy; if he was going to talk about what had happened then she'd rather he didn't do it in front of Lucy. She didn't want Lucy to know that she'd been compelled to forget a huge chunk of her life. She didn't want anyone to know. She wasn't sure she even wanted to know herself. "What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you."

"You had to come all the way over? You couldn't have called?"

He flinched. At the coldness of her tone, perhaps? She could only imagine that if his last memory of her before he was 'killed' was one where she was declaring her undying love for him then her attitude now was, in contrast, icy cold. Did it bother him, her cool attitude? It looked that way, but if it did, he didn't comment on it.

"Would you have answered?" the corners of his lips turned upwards in a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"No." she admitted reluctantly.

The atmosphere between them was awkward to say the least. What exactly do you say to someone to diffuse the tension after they've revealed that they were your boyfriend once-upon-a-time and that they're still in love with you, only you don't remember even a second of it?

Lucy, sensing the tension, which wasn't hard given that it was so obvious that they might as well have had a flashing sign above both of their heads declaring the situation awkward, looked between the two of them for a moment.

"You know what, I just remembered I have somewhere to be," she said tactfully, she reached behind the door to collect her coat and shrugged it on, "I'll see you later, Tori." she nodded at Kol as she passed him and he returned it half-heartedly.

They waited until Lucy was gone and out of earshot before they unwillingly met each others gaze.

"Can I come in?"

Astoria hesitated. She didn't really want to be alone with him and she certainly didn't want to talk about what had happened, but she didn't suppose she had a choice. Either she let him in or he forced his way in.

"Sure," she said, stepping aside and gesturing for him to come in. "Do you want anything to drink or-"

"You don't have to do that." he said as she closed the door behind him.

"Do what?"

"That. I think we can skip the pleasantries. I didn't come here for a tea party, I came to apologise."

"Apologise for what?"

"When I saw you in that bar, I should have told you everything and then left. I knew that my brother wouldn't reverse it so I thought that I could rebuild what we had before. But you're right, you're not the same person you were back then and it was wrong of me to assume that you'd just fall back into my arms when you found out."

Astoria watched him closely as he spoke. It might have just been her imagination, but to her it looked like every word was causing him physical pain, like someone was spearing him with a red-hot poker with every syllable. "I'm sorry about that. I'll leave you alone from now on. You won't see me again."

He was giving her exactly what she wanted, wasn't he? He was agreeing to let the whole thing go and leave her alone…so why didn't she feel relieved? Why didn't she feel like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders? Because there was a period in her life that she knew nothing about, perhaps? Because it made her feel vulnerable not knowing what had happened, maybe?

He was walking away from her now, leaving.

"Wait," she said and he turned around, "I still don't know everything that happened back then," she said, taking a hesitant step towards him, "I mean, aren't you going to tell me?"

"You don't need to know. My brother won't reverse the compulsion, you'll never remember that time of your life." he replied sullenly.

"You said that you love me, don't you want to, I don't know, fill me in on all that?"

He let another false smile that didn't reach his eyes flit across his face. "I think I spoke a little too soon. It's been over a century. I don't love you, I barely know you." he said, paraphrasing her own words.

"Oh, ok, fair enough." she said, returning his half-assed smile. Whether he was lying or not, this news didn't really upset her. His words weren't wounding her, though she suspected that they were hurting him if the dead look in his eyes were anything to go by.

Would she feel differently if she remembered? Probably.

He turned to leave again but she had another question. "Why won't your brother give me back my memories? Why doesn't he want me to remember?"

Kol shrugged. "My brother is a complex person. Whatever his motive is, I won't know unless he wants me to."

She nodded. She wasn't really sure how to reply to that.

"Goodbye then, I guess."

He nodded at her, his lips pursed, before turning and leaving her apartment, pulling the door shut behind him.

She exhaled loudly as soon as the door clicked shut and pushed her hands through her hair. She wasn't sure what to feel. Happy that he was going to leave her alone? Sad because she'd lost a potential friend? Irritated because he'd refused to tell her anything about her past?

She didn't really feel anything apart from a strange sort of emptiness. Like she was hollow.


	19. Chapter 19

Days passed by and Astoria didn't see or hear from Kol, just as he'd promised. The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. Astoria had accepted the fact that she wouldn't be remembering that time in her life any time soon, if ever, so she let it go. She forgot about Kol and got on with her life. It wasn't hard, what had Kol been to her, really? Someone who _could _have been her friend?

Two months passed without any word of Kol and everything in her life had returned to how it should be.

Lucy was still dating Steve and Steve was still an irritating ass but she was learning to tolerate him and he was learning to try and get along with her. It was a work in progress.

It wasn't until the end of May that anything out of the ordinary happened.

Astoria was at home, getting ready to head on round to Lucy's when a sharp knock on the door rang through the apartment.

She glanced at herself in the mirror and wiped a smudge of mascara from under her eye before getting up from her dressing table and walking out of her room, into the living room and over to the door. She pulled it open for find an unfamiliar man stood there. He was a little taller than her with blonde hair and blue eyes. As soon as he met her eyes, a small smirk began playing on his lips.

"Ah, yes. I remember you."

"I'm sorry, have we met?"

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said, completely ignoring her question, "My name is Klaus." he held out his hand to her and she hesitated before taking it.

"Tori," she replied, her brows furrowing in confusion. Who was this man?

"Yes, I know. May I come in?"

"Why?"

"There's something we need to talk about."

"We do?"

"Yes."

She stepped back and gestured for him to come in. Closing the door behind him felt a little like locking herself in a cage with a wild animal. Though he was outwardly calm, she sensed that he could snap at any moment, exactly like a wild animal.

_Exactly like Kol_, she thought to herself, her eyes widening in shock of her own thoughts; she hadn't thought about Kol in weeks.

"What can I do for you, Klaus?" she asked him, watching him as he surveyed her apartment with critical eyes.

"Well, it's been brought to my attention that I kind of owe my brother a favour."

"Oh? And what does that have to do with me?" she replied, utterly nonplussed.

"I believe you know my brother. Kol Mikaelson?"

She stiffened at the mention of Kol's name. If Klaus was Kol's brother, that meant that he too was an Original, which meant that he was more than capable of ripping her limb from limb with his hands tied behind his back. She took a step back, resisting the urge to flee the apartment.

"Oh, I'm not here to hurt you." he said, when she took a step back. "Quite the opposite, actually."

"Are you the brother that compelled me to forget him?" she asked.

"That would be me." he confirmed with a small nod. "I'm here to change that, though." he took a few steps forwards until he was stood but a few inches away from her. Before she could protest or try and convince him otherwise, he had captured her gaze with his. She could feel his influence as his power, his sheer force washed through her mind, erasing her will. Anything he asked her to do, she would do, because she didn't have the power nor the willpower to resist.

"Now, you remember."

She blinked slowly and he was gone, but not before the influx of memories began forcing their way back into her mind. Missing pieces were replaced, the dots were joined, the puzzle completed.

_She remembered._

_**England, 1910**_

_It was an unseasonably cold night for July. As soon as the sun had set, the air had adopted a rather sinister chill. The air was still but bitterly cold. Being a vampire, it didn't particularly bother her, but it did lessen the chance that she'd get a meal if all her would-be victims were staying inside to try and avoid the cold. _

_She sighed and her breath misted up in the air in front of her, demonstrating how cold it really was. Her chances of snagging a meal tonight were slim. The only people out on the streets would be the ones who didn't have a choice: the homeless. More often than not, their blood was riddled with alcohol and made for a rather unpleasant drinking experience. But blood was blood and even alcohol doused blood was better than no blood at all._

_Still, she wasn't starving. She still had another few days to go until she reached the point where it became painful._

"_What's a pretty little thing like you doing out by herself? And in the dark, as well! Don't you know there's a killer on the loose?"_

_She turned to find a young man around her age walking a couple of steps behind her. He had dark hair and an arrogant expression. She smirked, one bite and she was sure she could wipe that look from his face. _

"_Trying to avoid irritating, perverted men like yourself." she said, watching as his eyes wandered downwards, taking in her form. "Besides, I'm sure I could handle myself if I happened to run into this killer, I'm a lot stronger than I look."_

_Her eyes took in his figure. He was taller than her and was more brawny than skinny, but she knew, without a doubt, that she'd be able to take him on. She just needed to lure him away from the public eye. _

"_I bet you are," he said appreciatively, his gaze meeting hers, "I'd be more than happy to test that theory." he said, raising an eyebrow suggestively._

_She giggled as though she found the comment endearing, although she found it repulsive. Men these days seemed to know nothing of dignity._

* * *

><p><em>She lured him into a dark, deserted alley way with the promise of a good time. It wasn't a lie exactly, <em>she _would be having a good time. As for him, well, not so much. _

_She glanced at either end of the alley, making sure that it was deserted, before making her move. She felt the whites of her eyes turn red and the veins that began to protrude underneath. Her mouth opened in a feral snarl and lunged right for his jugular, forcing him up against the wall._

_She'd expected a struggle, they always struggled, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. _

_This one was strong, though. Strong enough to wrap his hand around her neck and flip them around so that she was the one forced up against the door._

"_Were you really going to try and eat me?" he said, sounding more amused than angry. She looked him in the eye to find that his facial features were mirroring her own, right down to the red eyes._

"_Were you _really _going to try and eat _me_?" she hissed, pulling his hand from her throat. _

"_I thought you were human." he explained, taking a step back from her. _

"_Yeah, I figured that much out myself." she replied dryly._

"_The herd is thin tonight. This weather is keeping all my usual victims inside, wrapped up nice and warm." he said bitterly._

_Astoria didn't answer but nodded silently. She understood his resentment. They'd both got their hopes up when they'd spotted each other, neither one of them knowing that they were one in the same; vampires.. Obviously he'd had the same intentions as her. As he'd said, the herd was thin and pickings were slim tonight. _

"_I'm Kol, by the way." he said, holding out his hand._

"_Astoria." _


	20. Chapter 20

_**England 1912**_

_Astoria didn't fall in love. She just didn't. It wasn't her style. Sometimes she wondered whether or not she had it in her, or had being turned into a vampire gotten rid of that part of her? She didn't fall in love, it just wasn't who she was._

_Except, she had fallen in love._

_It was messy, complicated and more trouble than it was worth. She couldn't remember a more complex time of her life._

_She and Kol had come a long way from the two vampires trying to feed on each other back in that dark alley way two years ago. It had been a long and emotional journey but eventually the pair of them had been able to admit they had feelings for each other. _Real _feelings. _

_They were polar opposites. Like the two different ends on a magnet. They had almost nothing in common, but they trusted no one but each other in a world where living for an eternity was possible, they were all the other had._

* * *

><p>"<em>I wish I had one of these," Astoria complained, inspecting the small ring inset with a blue stone on Kol's forefinger. She was so sick of being confined indoors whenever it was daylight. Especially when it meant that she got to spend less time with Kol. How were they supposed to have any kind of life together when she could only go out at night?<em>

"_We'll get you one." he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear._

"_How?"_

"_I'm sure there's a witch somewhere willing to help out in exchange for, oh, I don't know, their life."_

_She raised an eyebrow._

"_I'm kidding. But I will get you one, I promise."_

_She lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. "I've forgotten what it feels like," she said with a sigh, "the sun on my skin…"_

"_How long?" he said gently, laying down beside her. _

"_730 years."_

_He rolled onto his side and placed his hand on her waist so that he could pull her over onto her side so that they were facing each other. He moved his hand up from her waist to stroke back her hair. She smiled at his touch and he leaned in to kiss her._

"_Well isn't this…touching."_

_Both of them turned to find a tall, blonde man stood leaning against the doorframe. He was unfamiliar to Astoria, but Kol seemed to recognise him. _

_He immediately got up from the bed, standing at the foot of the bed, blocking Astoria from the blonde man's view. _

"_Hello, brother." _

"_What are you doing here?" said Kol through clenched teeth._

"_Oh, I think you know."_

_They stared at each other for a few long, hard moments before Kol turned his head to the side. "Tori, you need to go."_

"_No, no!" interrupted the blonde man, "I think she should see this!"_

"_See what?" asked Astoria, getting up from the bed._

"_Leave her out of this." he growled._

"_Are you so foolish as to care for her?" snapped the man, his eyes flickering between Astoria and Kol._

_Kol didn't answer. He kept his eyes fixated on his brother._

"_Alright, down to business then." he grinned before throwing his Kol across the room, where he crashed into the wall, and sauntered over casually._

"_What are you _doing_?" Astoria cried, hurrying over to try and aid Kol, only to have herself thrown backwards. She fell into the opposite wall and hit her head on the side of the bedside cabinet. She could feel the blood start to trickle down her forehead, but she ignored it. The wound would heal soon. She watched, horrified, as Kol got up and walked towards his brother. His expression was smooth but Astoria knew he was angry. She could see it in his eyes._

_His brother was ready for him, though. Before Kol could get so much as a punch in, his brother had forced a thin, metallic dagger through his chest._

_Astoria gasped as Kol let out a grunt of pain. She expected him to pull the dagger out and plunge it into his brother's stomach or something. Instead, his skin steadily began to lose colour and he began to lose consciousness._

_What was happening?_

"_No," said Astoria, getting up and scrambling over the bed towards him, "no, what's happening? What have you done?"_

"_He's dead, love."_

_What? No, that couldn't be right. Daggers didn't kill vampires, stakes did. "He can't be," she said, shaking her head, refusing to believe what was right in front of her eyes. _

"_Look at him."_

_Reluctantly, she let her gaze fall on Kol's motionless body and she felt her heart drop._

_His skin was grey. His veins were standing out. It was a look that was very popular with those who had been staked._

"_Why would you do that?" she whispered, kneeling down in front of him and holding her hand against his cheek. She felt a tear fall down her face and she finally understood what people meant when they said the world was crashing down around them._

_She grasped his face between her hands, trying to force a spark of life back into him, trying to shock him back into the land of the living. He couldn't be dead. This was _Kol_. __She pressed her lips to his forehead before holding his lifeless body against her own. __She could feel the blonde man watching her but she didn't care. The tears were falling thick and fast now as the reality of the situation set in. Kol was dead. _Dead. _Gone. She'd never see him again, never speak to him. Ever._

_She drew back and made to pull the dagger out of his chest, eager to get rid of the disgusting object that had taken him away from her when a pair of hands began dragging her away._

"_What are you doing?" she demanded, pulling herself out of his grasp. "Get off of me!"_

_She turned to face him and she was startled to see he looked angry. Was he angry at her?_

_He took a step towards her and her survival instinct kicked in. She'd just seen him murder his own brother, he wouldn't think twice about sending her the same way._

_She sped out of the room with him hot on her heels. She grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter, right where Kol had left it, and turned with it in her hands. The man ran right into it, cursing violently as the blade glided through his flesh. She left him cursing in pain and picked up one of the wooden chairs sitting in front of the fireplace. She hesitated a moment before launching it in his direction. He caught it and threw it back at her, catching her off guard._

_In the time it took her to dodge the chair, both of his hands had grasped her shoulders._

_This was it. He was going to kill her. She wasn't going to see the sun again, she wasn't going to see anything again. _

_Or maybe she was. Maybe she'd be reunited with Kol…and her family, maybe?_

_The man took hold of her chin and forced her head upwards so that their eyes met. _

_Strange. As soon as she looked at him she felt…powerless. Like she had no will of her own._

"_You're going to forget ever meeting Kol. You're going to forget what happened tonight. You're going to forget everything involving my brother and I until I say otherwise."_


	21. Chapter 21

**Sorry it's taken me so long to update! Bit of a short chapter, sorry. Hope you all like it. :)**

* * *

><p><strong>America, present day<strong>

Astoria was in a sort of daze. She was bewildered. Shocked. It seemed impossible now, that she hadn't remembered. How could she have forgotten Kol? He wasn't just some random guy she'd met a hundred years ago or someone she'd seen in passing, he was _Kol_. She loved him.

Or, she used to, at least. She wasn't really sure how she felt about him now. It was strange to think that for him it must feel like they'd seen each other only the other day since he'd been unconscious for a century, yet she'd lived through the past century with no memory of him or their time together.

She had to find him. He needed to know that she remembered everything. She needed to know how she felt about him now that she was in the know.

But where to start? She hadn't seen Kol in 2 months. She didn't know where he was or what he was doing. If she called him was sure to ignore her call, and this wasn't really something you could do over the phone anyway. It needed to be face to face.

* * *

><p>She figured that a good place to start would be to visit his apartment. She wasn't sure if he was even still living there, but it was the only starting point she had after he'd ignored her calls. She stood in front of his door for at least five minutes trying to summon up the courage to knock. What would she even say to him?<p>

She stared at the door with her hand raised in front of her, ready to knock. She hesitated, wondering whether she should just forget the whole thing and go home before pulling herself together and knocking hard on the door three times. If he was in there, there was no way he couldn't have heard it. If no one answered, either he wasn't there or he was ignoring her.

She waited 10, 20 and then 30 seconds, but no one answered the door and she couldn't hear anyone moving inside, not even a shuffle.

Sighing, she turned to leave only to find herself face to face with the reason she was there in the first place.

The sight of him stood right in front of her stirred up butterflies in the pit of her stomach, despite his bleak expression and despite the fact that before Klaus's visit she'd felt nothing but a slight physical attraction to him, it was all that she could do not to wrap her arms around him. He felt so familiar now, she knew him better than she knew anyone. He was the one person in her life that she'd ever been able to be herself with. She'd opened her soul to him, let him explore even the darkest corners of her mind and he'd still loved her.

And she loved him. More than she could stand.

"What are you doing here?" Kol asked her flatly, moving past her to unlock the door.

"I wanted to talk to you." She replied a little hesitantly. She wanted him to know but she wasn't going to do this on the doorstep.

"About?"

"Can I come in?" She asked as he pushed open the door and turned to face her. Her heart sank at the look on his face. He was barely even glancing at her.

What if he didn't want her anymore?

"Do you have to?"

"Yes, it's important."

He sighed and stood aside to let her in. She walked past him into the apartment. She made her way into the living room and stood in the centre of the room wringing her hands together in agitation. She was nervous now. What if he'd moved on and she was nothing but a former lover to him now?

"What is it then?" He asked her as he came into the room. He perched himself on the arm of a chair and looked at her expectantly.

"I remember, Kol." She said slowly, her eyes fixed on his face, gauging his reaction.

"Remember what?" He said without looking at her, sounding thoroughly bored.

"Everything." She replied simply.

His eyes snapped up to meet hers and he stared at her. "What?" He whispered, rising from the arm of the chair and taking a very slow and deliberate step forward.

"I remember everything, Kol."

"How?" He whispered in disbelief, stopping when he was right in front of her.

"Your brother paid me a visit. He said he owed you a favour."

He swallowed, not taking his eyes off her for even a second. He didn't seem to want to look away from her for so much as a moment.

"What does this mean then? For you and me…?"

Astoria took a step forward, closing the space between them, and placed a hand on either side of his face. His arms went around her waist and pulled her into him so that their bodies were flush against each other. Although it was the first time they'd been so close in over a century - excluding the time they'd slept together - she couldn't have felt more comfortable. "Whatever you want it to mean," she murmured before brushing her lips against his.


	22. Chapter 22

Sorry it's been so long since I updated! Will try not to leave it so long between updates from now on.

* * *

><p>"Why did he do it? Your brother, I mean. Why did he dagger you?"<p>

Kol turned on his side so that he was facing her. She was staring up at the ceiling, her hair splayed out on the pillow beneath her head.

"I suppose he was worried that we'd turn on him." Kol replied slowly, propping himself up on his elbow.

She turned her head slightly to look at him. "Would you have turned on him?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. He didn't exactly help himself by daggering us all and storing us in coffins but I get it. Our mother abandoned him after she cursed him. Our father spent a thousand years hunting him down. He didn't want to be alone. I suppose the only way he thought he could keep us close was by carting us around in coffins." He lay back down on his pillow and adopted the same position that Astoria had been in, staring up at the ceiling.

"You don't like talking about it, do you?" she said softly.

Kol shook his head.

"Families are so…complicated." She gave a small laugh.

"Did you ever go back to see yours?"

"Occasionally." Astoria replied casually in an attempt to remain nonchalant. Family was and always had been a bit of a sore subject for her. "I'd keep to the shadows, though. It was better for them to think that I was dead than to know what I had become." She paused. "Didn't I ever tell you that, you know, before?"

"No. You never talked about your family much. The little pieces you did tell me always came when you were in particularly dark places."

Astoria frowned. "Dark places?" Though Klaus had given her, her memories back, it was still hard to recall every detail from that time; there was only so much of eight centuries worth of memories that one person could retain.

"Yeah, you became a little depressed from time to time, being unable to go out in the sun and all."

Oh. Yeah. She'd frequently fallen into many depressions over the years and become horribly miserable being able to go out only at night.

"You managed to get a daylight ring, then?" He asked, threading his fingers between hers before lifting both of their hands towards his face so that he could inspect the small ring on her index finger. His expression darkened a little and she felt his fingers tighten around her hand very slightly. She didn't have to ask why; no doubt he was remembering that the last conversation they'd had before his brother had stopped by and killed him was on the very same subject.

Astoria smiled at him in an attempt to lighten the mood. She wasn't quite sure how they'd gotten from clutching at each other and crying out in the throes of passion to such a melancholy mood but she was keen to get out of it. She smiled at him and he returned the smile, albeit a little half-heartedly.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

He was silent for a few moments. He released her hand and propped himself up on elbow again, facing her. "Do you love me?"

He said it casually but she could tell by the unnatural stillness of his body and the way that he couldn't quite catch her eye that he was waiting with baited breath for her answer. She remembered when she'd first found out exactly how she and Kol were connected and had proceeded to tell him, rather cruelly, that she didn't love him. Looking back, she knew that she had been a little insensitive about it. That particular conversation had obviously stayed with him, too, if he was so unsure about her feelings for him even now.

"I'm here, aren't I?" she raised an eyebrow.

"But do yo-"

"Yes." she cut him off.

He lifted his gaze, dragging it away from the spot on the mattress that he'd been staring fixatedly at, to meet hers. "You do?" he seemed surprised.

"Yes." she said simply.

His whole body seemed to relax and, though he tried to suppress it, a shy smile made it's way, unbidden, onto his face.

"Did you doubt me?"

"No, I mean, not as such. I just thought…because it's been so long for you and, well, you know."

She grinned and leaned over to kiss him when they were interrupted by a shrill ringing. Both of them groaned as Kol fumbled for his phone.

"Leave it." Astoria suggested as she clambered on top of him and sat astride him. He glanced at the display and rolled his eyes.

"Brother," he answered, "this had better be of the utmost importance."

Astoria, set upon distracting him from the phone call, began trailing kisses up his neck.

"What I have to say is _always _of the utmost importance, Kol." she heard his brother reply. She imagined him saying it with a roll of his eyes or perhaps a mock hurt expression.

"You have thirty seconds." said Kol as Astoria bit down on his neck, eliciting the smallest of gasps from him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you busy?" replied his brother sarcastically.

"Twenty five." said Kol as Astoria reached his jaw line.

"I need you to go to Denver." snapped Klaus who was obviously irritated that Kol wasn't riveted by his every word. Astoria reached his lips at the same moment and engaged his mouth in an ardent kiss. Kol didn't seem to mind.

"Kol?"

He didn't respond. Not to his brother, anyway. His free hand slid down her back, coming to rest against her thigh.

"_Kol?_"

With an exasperated sigh, Kol pulled away from the kiss and returned his attention grudgingly to his brother. "Why?"

"It's all part of the plan, brother."

"Do you think you can convince her to do it?" Kol replied, suddenly all ears. Astoria sat up, still sat astride him, frowning. What was going on?

"That's why I need you in Denver, just in case I can't."

"What's in Denver?"

"Jeremy Gilbert."

There was silence on both ends. A small smirk was playing on Kol's lips and Astoria wondered who on earth Jeremy Gilbert was and why Kol seemed to enjoy the fact that he was in Denver.

"Understood." He hung up and let his phone drop to the floor. Astoria opened her mouth to ask why his brother needed him in Denver and who Jeremy Gilbert was when Kol sat up suddenly and diverted her attention. Both arms went around her waist, pulling her as close to him as possible, and he captured her lips in a kiss that was made to both please and distract. She kissed him back fervently, her hands knotting in the hair at the back of his head. She allowed him a few moments of unadulterated passion before pulling back, a little breathless.

"So, Denver, huh?"


	23. Chapter 23

"What about it?" Kol murmured as he brushed her hair over her shoulder so that he could get to her neck.

"Why does your brother want you there?"

"Long story," he muttered, pressing his lips to her neck in yet another attempt to distract her.

"Who's Jeremy Gilbert?" she pressed him, determined to know what was going on, though he seemed determined to keep it from her.

"No one important." he leaned up to kiss her, to shut her up perhaps, and she leaned back, evading his lips.

"Tell me!"

Kol sighed and stopped in his futile attempts to distract her from the matter at hand. He pushed a hand through his hair and surveyed her for a long moment before speaking.

"There are things happening right now. People, some of them _mortals_-" he sneered "-are trying to kill us. My siblings and I."

Astoria stared at him. A small furrow appeared in her brow as what he said sunk in. "But you can't be killed…not indefinitely."

"There are a few ways, and these people are hell bent on wiping us out. It's infuriating." His expression, so carefree only moments ago, was now marred with anger. And rightly so. Who did these people think they were? Trying to wipe out the oldest, strongest vampires in the history of time. Talk about lack of respect.

"Why?" Astoria whispered, horrified; she couldn't imagine losing Kol again, and so soon after getting him back.

"It's a really long story."

"Are you going to tell me?"

"No."

"Why not?" she demanded indignantly.

"Because I don't want you involved in this. I don't want them using you against me. Against all of us."

"But I could help!" Astoria protested angrily.

"I don't want you to help! I don't want you anywhere near this!" Kol replied, equally as angry. Astoria opened her mouth but Kol cut across her. "Astoria. Trust me, please."

She scowled at him but didn't argue. She knew that the battle was lost and that if she pushed him much further he'd compel her to forget about it or something like that.

"I assume that this means I'm not allowed to come with you to Denver?" she asked him, sulking.

"That's exactly what it means."

She sighed but didn't argue. "How long are you going to be gone?"

"I don't know," he replied, pushing a hand through his hair. "As long as I'm needed."

Astoria opened her mouth to protest but before she could get her words out, Kol pressed a finger to her lips. "I have to do this. For my family."

Astoria nodded. That she could understand. She'd have done the same if her family were still alive. "I don't see why you don't just kill them all if they're causing so much trouble." she muttered.

Kol laughed. "I had the same thought."

* * *

><p>Astoria sat in the armchair in Kol's living room as he sped around the apartment, packing for his trip to Denver. She didn't protest or complain anymore, but she made sure that her expression and body language reflected her thoughts and feelings on the whole thing; her expression was stony, her arms were folded and her legs crossed. She understood why he had to do it. Family was important, especially when there were outside forces trying to destroy said family. That didn't mean she liked the whole thing, though.<p>

Who were these people, these idiots trying to kill the Originals? Why hadn't someone gotten rid of them already? If Klaus was able to dagger his own siblings, what was it to him if he disposed of a few nobodies here and there?

Ava was all for preserving human life and all. She wasn't a fan of killing unnecessarily, but in this case, she thought, killing was more than necessary.

"Don't look at me like that!" Kol had complained when he'd asked her if she'd seen his phone and she'd looked up at him sullenly.

"Like what?" she snapped.

"Like that! "

She glared at him for a moment before extracting his phone from her jeans pocket and handing it over.

"Were you hiding it?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"So what if I was?" she snapped, riling up instantly. She stood up so that she was eye-level with him.

He took a step back, staring at her. "What's wrong with you?"

She scoffed and turned her back on him. In all truth, she didn't _know _what was wrong with her. She wasn't entirely sure where all this hostility was coming from. Yes, she didn't want him to go to Denver but this wasn't like her. She didn't usually react to such situations so aggressively. She was a relatively calm person. For a vampire, anyway. She couldn't stop it, either. She tried to calm herself down, she told herself that she was being irrational and that Kol's business in Denver, whatever it was, was much more important than staying here just to appease her, yet the more she tried to justify his actions, the more the anger reared up inside her.

"Astoria…" he said gently. She felt his fingers thread through hers as he tried to pull her around to face him.

"Don't touch me!" she exploded, pulling her hand so forcefully out of his that he staggered forwards. What on earth was she doing, she thought to herself frantically as he took a wary step away from her, staring at her as though she'd gone mad. Perhaps she had gone mad. It was the only explanation she could think of for her current behaviour.

"What is _wrong _with you?" Kol demanded angrily.

"You." she spat vehemently. "You are what's wrong with me." She turned on her heel and left the apartment. Kol called after her but she ignored him. She wanted to get far, far away from him. The anger she had felt in his presence was alarming. _Where on earth had that come from? _Slowly, the anger seemed to ebb away. In fact, by the time she got back to her own apartment she was completely nonplussed as to why she had acted that way. It can't have been purely because of his trip to Denver. She didn't feel _that _strongly about it. She frowned to herself. Something was going on. There had to be. Unless, of course, she really was going mad.


	24. Chapter 24

"_Tori," _She noted the use of her preferred name. "_It's me. Kol." _There was a long pause. "_Look, if I've done something to upset you then I'm sorry, I really am. I want to stay and sort things out but I _have _to go to Denver. It really is a life or death situation. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be going." _Another long pause. "_You know that I…I mean, I l-just call me. Please."_

"How long has he been gone?"

"A week."

"Is this the only message that he's left?"

"No. This is one of many." She paused. "Well, three."

Lucy stared down at the cell phone for a moment thoughtfully. "And you haven't called him?"

Tori shook her head.

"Why not?"

"Because he's going to want an explanation and I don't have one. He wants to know what's wrong and I don't _know_." She stared at her friend, desperately hoping that she would have some sort of justification for her behaviour, anything, but none came. "Perhaps I'm going mad. Can that happen? Can vampires go crazy?"

"You're not going crazy." Lucy scoffed.

"It would make sense." She continued as if Lucy hadn't spoken. "I mean, I had my head messed with by Klaus, maybe something went wrong?"

"We'll figure this out, Tori. I promise."

* * *

><p>Jeremy Gilbert was an average teenage boy. There was nothing about him that set him apart from any other boy his age, with the exception of the obvious; his connection to those back in Mystic Falls who were tirelessly attempting to eliminate the Originals.<p>

Kol was bored. He knew that Klaus needed him there in case they needed Jeremy for any leverage, but so far Klaus hadn't needed Kol for anything that was making his time in Denver worthwhile. It was all time that could be spent trying to patch things up with Astoria. He wasn't quite sure where it had gone wrong, or even how, but he'd been gone a week and she still wasn't answering any of his calls, or replying to any of his messages.

He picked his phone up for what had to be the tenth time in the past fifteen minutes, hoping but not expecting to see that Astoria had replied. But no. He was half tempted to leave the boy, head back and _demand _to know what was wrong. He couldn't imagine that she'd appreciate that though.

Bored, he watched as Jeremy hit repeatedly at baseballs that were launched at him from some sort of machine. It looked like it might be somewhat therapeutic. Effective for channelling anger.

When Jeremy took a break, Kol took his place. He took the bat that Jeremy proffered and positioned himself before the machine. He didn't bother with a helmet, despite Jeremy's protests. When the ball came whizzing out of the machine, he hit it with perfect precision. He was greeted instantly with a wave of relief. Like some sort of weight had been lifted from his chest. It was the sort of release he got from killing. Not nearly as good, of course, but satisfactory. It would do for now, whilst he was in a position where killing people wasn't an option.

* * *

><p>Astoria sat on the end of the sofa at Lucy's house. She was tapping her fingers impatiently against the small coffee table by her side. Her stomach was churning uncomfortably and she wasn't listening to a word that Lucy was saying. She was still worried that she was going mad. It was all that she could think about, but she was doing her best to hide it. But at that moment in time, her best wasn't at all convincing.<p>

"Can you not?" Came an irritating voice and the coffee table vanished from beneath her fingers. She looked up to find the annoyingly familiar face of Steve. He opened his mouth, probably to berate her for touching the coffee table, when Astoria spoke first.

"What's he doing here?" She demanded irritably.

"What am _I _doing here?" Steve said before Lucy could get a word in edge ways. "What are _you _doing here?" He sat down in the armchair opposite her and surveyed her. "I thought we'd finally got rid of you. Break up with you, did he?" She knew he was referring to Kol and she opened her mouth to tell him to _shut up _and that he was walking on dangerous territory, when he continued. "I don't blame him. _I'd _break up with you, if I were him."

"Steve." Lucy said quietly, throwing him a sharp glance.

Astoria didn't reply. Ever since that last night with Kol, it was taking very little to make her angry. She didn't know why, as she'd never been a particularly angry person, but she was getting riled up over almost everything these days.

Right now, she was concentrating hard on not jumping up off the sofa, dragging Steve from his armchair and throwing him across the room. She was concentrating on not banging his head repeatedly into his beloved coffee table.

He was still talking, she noticed after she resurfaced from her gruesome daydream. She wasn't sure what he was talking about, nor did she care, but just the sound of his voice was grating.

"Will you _shut up_?"

Steve tried his best to look shocked, though Astoria knew he was secretly pleased. His one ambition in life seemed to be to irritate her, to push her to snap in an attempt to get Lucy to turn against her.

"Excuse me?"

"I've just been sat here for the past five minutes," she said calmly, "imagining every which way to brutally murder you." Her calmness was a façade. Her irrational anger was still there, brewing beneath the surface, just waiting to spill over. "I was going to bash your head into the coffee table. I was going to throw you across the room. But neither were nearly brutal enough, so then I thought, why not really go to town? Rip your throat out, gouge out your eyes. Tear you limb from limb and then let you bleed to death." For the first time, she noticed, Steve looked genuinely scared of her. So did Lucy. Both of them were staring at her in horror. She stood up and watched in pleasure as Steve shrank back into his seat fearfully. She chucked at his pathetic form. She wouldn't kill him today. She'd let what she'd said sink in, let him live in fear. It would make for an altogether more satisfying kill.

* * *

><p>Back at her own apartment, after leaving Lucy and Steve, both frozen in fear by her murderous monologue, Astoria was more frightened and confused than angry now. As soon as she'd left, the anger had ebbed away and she'd found herself at a loss for words. What was happening to her? Where was this anger coming from?<p>

Hesitantly, she picked up her cell from the counter and flicked through the contact book. She knew who she wanted to call. There was only one person she wanted to call, but would he even want to hear from her after she'd ignored him for so long?

* * *

><p>He almost thought he was imagining it when he took his phone out of his jacket pocket for the first time in an hour or so to find that the display read that he had a voicemail. Apprehensively, he pressed the button that allowed him to listen and raised the phone to his ear.<p>

"_Kol_." Astoria's voice came down the phone and he found himself gripping it more tightly than was necessary. "_I'm sorry about, well, you know. I wish I could explain_," he noticed that there was a waver in her voice, almost as though she were trying not to cry, "_but I can't. I don't know what's happening to me_." There was a long pause. "_I-I think I'm going mad, Kol. I think I'm losing my mind and I'm scared_." He was still clutching the phone, holding on for dear life. He relaxed his grip when he realised he was in danger of snapping the phone in half. "_I kind of need you right now. I know that you can't leave Denver, but if you can, can you call me? Please?_" She paused again and in his minds eye he could see her sat on her sofa, or perhaps cross-legged in the middle of her bed, pushing a hand through her hair, which he'd come to notice was habitual for her when she was stressed. "_I love you_."


	25. Chapter 25

Kol opened his eyes and blinked a few times against the light. It was a few moments before the sharp pain in his chest registered, but as soon as it did, it was all he could think about. He grasped the wooden handle of what had been a baseball bat and pulled it slowly from his body. He was aware of the gasps of pain escaping from his lips, but not altogether in control of them. Rather like how he'd be aware of his actions when he found Damon Salvatore, but not altogether in control of them when he ripped his heart from his chest. He ached to kill the doppelganger whore as well, but was under strict orders not to touch her. A shame, because the ways in which he would kill her, if allowed, were quite possibly the most imaginative so far.

Fortunately for him, he knew the dynamic duo's plan, and he was already ten steps ahead. They would want to talk to Mary before long. It would be such a pity if someone else got there before them and silenced her.

Astoria lay motionless on her bed. It was the same position she'd taken up eight days ago, when she'd decided that she could no longer be bothered to do anything. She wondered if that was part of her crazy. Lying face up on a bed, staring up at the ceiling, for eight solid days didn't seem like the kind of thing a sane person would do. Or would they? Probably not.

Heaving herself up into a sitting position, she reached for the half empty glass on her bedside table. She lifted it to her lips and took a swig from the crimson liquid, wincing slightly as it went down. That glass had been sitting on her bedside table for god knows how long and it tasted less than great. Still, blood was blood.

From somewhere she plucked up the motivation to get up from her bed, shower and actually get dressed. She wondered, as she brushed her hair, where Kol was. What was he doing? What would he think of her behaviour?

She checked her phone and found nothing. No missed calls, no voicemails, no messages. Nothing. He was probably busy, she thought, doing whatever his god-forsaken brother had ordered him to.

Sighing, she made to head into the kitchen when she was interrupted by a knock on the door. She'd heard their voices as they climbed the stairs but hadn't paid much attention as no one aside from Lucy ever visited her.

Cursing under her breath, Astoria made her way over to the door and pulled it open. There stood a tall, dark-haired man and a younger, olive-skinned, dark-haired girl.

"Surprise!" Said the man with a smirk. She immediately took a dislike to him. He was cocky, full of himself.

The girl threw him an exasperated glance before turning to Astoria and asking, "can we come in?"

Astoria placed a hand on the doorframe, blocking their way in. "No. I don't know you."

"I'm Elena. This is Damon."

"Nice to meet you. Now that we're all friends, if we could just-"

"Come in? Why, what do you want?"

"Listen lady, you can either let us in, or I'll force our way in."

Astoria grinned. He was cocky, a common trait with younger vampires. She wondered how cocky he'd be if she ripped his head off. "I'd like to see you try."

"Look," the girl, Elena, interjected before Damon could retort. "We're here about Kol."

There was a long moment of silence. Astoria considered slamming the door in their faces, but found herself doing the exact opposite. She lowered her arm, stood back and gestured for them to come inside.

"Your boyfriend's been causing us a bit of trouble." Damon said as soon as the door swung shut.

"I can't say I'm surprised. People can get defensive when you try and murder them."

"We're not trying to kill Kol," Damon protested. "For all we know, we could be a part of his bloodline. Killing him could be signing our own death sentences."

"Well, if you came to me to find out then I'm afraid you've had a wasted journey."

"We didn't come to you to find out," Elena said in a small voice.

"Then what did you come for?"

"Leverage," Damon said.

Before Astoria could reply, Damon started forward, but she was ready for him. She was eight hundred and fifty three. Her reflexes were more than up to the challenge. She didn't know what he had planned to do, nor did she care, because his intention was never given the chance to be executed. The moment he'd gotten within her distance, she'd grabbed him by the neck and forced him up against the wall, hard enough to leave a Damon-sized dent in the plaster.

"How dare you come here and challenge me," Astoria said in a low voice. "How dare you try and use me to get to Kol," She ignored Elena's cries of protest for Damon's wellbeing. She'd be next. A swift neck snap would be all it took. "Didn't anybody ever tell you to respect your elders?" Damon was slowly turning purple as he grappled with Astoria's hand, which was restricting his windpipe. "I've killed more people than years you've been alive."

Damon, to his credit, was battling valiantly. Most people, vampire or human, would have passed out by now. "Elena," He choked out. "Now."

Astoria turned, still holding Damon up against the wall, to see Elena standing behind her, a syringe of what she was sure would turn out to be vervain, poised and ready to strike.

"I'm sorry," Elena whispered, forcing the syringe forward, emptying it into Astoria's bloodstream.

It was painful, and horrifyingly so, but Astoria only had time to let out a groan of dissatisfaction before being pulled down into the dark abyss.

"What took you so long?" Damon demanded, massaging his neck.

"I felt guilty."

"Why? She's the enemy, Elena." They both looked down at the unconscious vampire sprawled at their feet.

"Is she? She was only defending herself. Defending Kol, the same way we'd defend Stefan, or any one of our friends, if someone threatened them."

"Elena, we got the girl. We have our leverage. We'll know which bloodline we all belong to by the end of the night, and this one will be no worse off."

"Yeah, right."


	26. Hey, look, I'm back

Hi guys! Wow, ok it has been a longggg time since I updated this fic, I know, and I apologise for that. Honestly, when they killed Kol I was absolutely furious and I lost any and all muse for this story. Anyhow, it looks like Kol maaaay be getting resurrected on the Originals (fingers crossed!), but I still wasn't sure whether or not to pick this story back up because I wasn't sure where to take it BUT then today I totally got a good idea for it, so I shall be back to updating this story. Watch this space :)

Also, if any of you are interested, I'm in the process of writing a tvd/the 100 crossover (RebekahxBellamy) called We Are Grounders, so you should totally check that out :)))

xx


End file.
